B  171  ,M83 
More,  Paul  Elmer 
Hellenistic  philosophies 


\ 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


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HELENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


/ 


THE  GREEK  TRADITION 

From  the  death  oj  Socrates 
to  the  Council  oj  Chalcedon 

399B.C.  TO  A.D.451 

too 

introduction:  platonism 

VOLUME  I.  THE  RELIGION  OF  PLATO 
VOLUME  II.  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


HELLENISTIC 

PHILOSOPHIES 

BY 

PAUL  ELMER  MORE 

Author  of  “Shelburne  Essays” 


JAN  28  1924 


&J6! CAL 


PRINCETON 

PRINCETON  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
London:  Humphrey  Milford.  Oxford  University  Press 

1923 


Copyrighted  1923  By  The  University  Press 


PRINTED  AT  THE  PRINCETON  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 


CONTENTS 


Aristippus 

1 

Epicurus 

18 

Cynics  and  Stotcs 

65 

Epictetus 

94 

Plotinus 

172 

Diogenes 

260 

Scepticism 

304 

Appendix  A 

371 

Appendix  B 

374 

Appendix  C 

376 

Appendix  D 

378 

Appendix  E 


384 


CHAPTER  I 
ARISTIPPUS 

Or  the  life  of  Aristippus,  who  founded  the  phi¬ 
losophy  of  pleasure  which  was  to  be  developed 
and  altered  by  Epicurus,  not  much  is  known.  He 
was  born  in  Cyrene,  whence  the  name  of  his  sect, 
but  apparently  abandoned  his  home  at  an  early 
age.  For  a  while,  at  least,  he  belonged  to  the  cir¬ 
cle  that  gathered  about  Socrates  in  Athens.  In 
these  year  s  he  seems  to  have  been  both  learner  and 
teacher,  for,  according  to  a  story  derived  from 
Phanius,  the  Peripatetic,  he  was  not  only  the 
first  of  Socrates’  pupils  who  exacted  money  for 
his  lessons,  but  on  one  occasion  aroused  the  in¬ 
dignation  of  the  master  by  sending  him  twenty 
drachmas  from  his  earnings. 

For  some  time  he  was  in  Syracuse  at  the  court 
of  the  younger,  perhaps  also  of  the  elder,  Diony¬ 
sius,  where  he  exercised  his  wit  at  the  expense  of 
Plato.  Once  at  a  banquet,  as  the  gossip  runs,  the 

i 


2 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


tyrant  bade  his  guests  dance  in  purple  robes; 
whereupon  Plato  refused,  declaring, 

“I  could  not  well  a  woman’s  garment  wear.” 

But  Aristippus  complied,  excusing  himself  with 
the  apt  quotation, 

“Even  in  Bacchus’  wild  alarm 
The  modest  woman  suffers  still  no  harm.” 

On  another  occasion,  when  Dionysius  presented 
Plato  with  a  book  and  Aristippus  with  gold,  the 
wily  Cyrenaic  defended  himself  against  the  jeers 
of  a  friend  with  the  observation:  “I  want  money, 
Plato  books.”  These  anecdotes  are  from  the  in¬ 
exhaustible  storehouse  of  Diogenes  Laertius ;  but 
Plutarch  also  tells  us  that  the  tyrant  offered  Plato 
money  often  and  in  large  sums,  and  that  Aris¬ 
tippus  commented  on  Plato’s  refusal  of  the  gifts 

was  canny  in  his 
munificence,  since  he  proffered  little  to  those 
who  needed  much,  and  much  to  Plato  who  would 
take  nothing.1 


with  the  remark  that  Dionysi 


1Dion  19. — A  good  jest  never  dies.  Dr.  Johnson  once  undertook 
to  browbeat  a  Cantabrigian  by  repeating  the  famous  epigram: 

“Our  royal  master  saw,  with  heedful  eyes, 

The  wants  of  his  two  universities: 

Troops  he  to  Oxford  sent,  as  knowing  why 
That  learned  body  wanted  loyalty: 

But  books  to  Cambridge  gave,  as  well  discerning 
That  that  right  loyal  body  wanted  learning.” 

To  which  the  Cantabrigian  made  retort: 

“The  king  to  Oxford  sent  his  troop  of  horse, 

For  Tories  own  no  argument  but  force; 

With  equal  care  to  Cambridge  books  he  sent, 

For  Whigs  allow  no  force  but  argument.” 


ARISTIPPUS 


3 

If  the  life  of  Aristippus  is  summed  up  in  a  few 
anecdotes,  it  is  not  much  better  with  his  philos¬ 
ophy.  The  books  he  wrote  have  been  lost,  and 
for  the  knowledge  of  his  principles  we  have  lit¬ 
tle  more  than  a  few  sentences  of  Diogenes  Laer¬ 
tius  and  of  Sextus  Empiricus,  and  even  so  it  is 
impossible  to  distinguish  clearly  between  what 
was  taught  by  Aristippus  himself  and  what  was 
added  by  his  successors.  In  general,  the  princi¬ 
ples  of  the  sect  are  thus  summarized  by  Diog¬ 
enes: 

“Those  who  abode  by  the  Aristippean  rule  of 
life  and  were  called  Cyrenaics  held  the  follow¬ 
ing  opinions :  There  are  two  affections  which  we 
feel  ( pathe ) ,  pain  and  pleasure,  the  former  be¬ 
ing  a  rough  state  of  motion,  the  latter  a  smooth 
state  of  motion.  Pleasure  does  not  differ  from 
pleasure  [in  quality,  they  mean] ,  nor  is  one  more 
a  pleasure  than  another.  Pleasure  is  approved 
by  all  living  creatures,  whereas  pain  is  avoided. 
And  the  pleasure  of  the  body,  which  they  make 
their  chief  good,  or  end,  is  not  that  continuous 
and  unperturbed  state  of  repose  arising  from 
cessation  of  pain  which  Epicurus  accepted  as 
the  end.  They  believe  that  the  end  is  a  different 
thing  from  happiness  ( eudaimonia )  ;  for  the 
good  we  aim  at  is  pleasure  ( hedone )  in  particu¬ 
lar,  but  happiness  is  the  sum  of  particular  pleas¬ 
ures,  in  which  are  included  those  of  the  past  and 
those  of  the  future.  The  particular  pleasure  is 


4  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

desirable  for  itself,  whereas  happiness  is  not  de¬ 
sirable  for  itself  but  for  the  particular  pleasures 
that  compose  it.  As  a  proof  that  pleasure  is  the 
end,  we  have  the  fact  that  from  childhood  we  are 
attracted  to  it  involuntarily,  and  that  obtaining 
it  we  seek  nothing  further,  whereas  there  is  noth¬ 
ing  we  so  avoid  as  its  opposite,  pain.  And  pleas¬ 
ure,  they  assert,  is  a  good  even  when  it  arises 
from  most  unseemly  causes;  for  even  if  the  act 
is  disreputable,  still  the  pleasure  in  itself  is  desir¬ 
able  and  good.  The  removal  of  pain  they  do  not 
account  pleasure,  as  does  Epicurus;  neither  is 
the  absence  of  pleasure  pain.  For  both  pleasure 
and  pain  consist  in  motion,  or  sensation,  and 
neither  the  absence  of  pain  nor  the  absence  of 
pleasure  is  a  motion,  or  sensation;  in  fact  the 
absence  of  pain  is  a  state  like  that  of  one  asleep. 
.  .  .  The  absence  of  pleasure  and  the  absence  of 
pain  they  called  middle  states.  Moreover  they 
held  pleasures  of  the  body  to  be  better  than  those 
of  the  mind  or  soul,  and  distresses  of  the  body  to 
be  worse.  .  .  .  But  however  pleasure  in  itself 
may  be  desirable,  the  causes  of  some  pleasures 
often  result  in  the  contrary  state  of  distress,  so 
that  the  assemblage  of  pleasures  which  produces 
happiness  seems  to  them  a  matter  of  extreme 
difficulty.  The  life  of  the  wise  man,  they  admit, 
is  not  one  of  continuous  pleasure,  nor  the  life  of 
the  fool  one  of  continuous  pain ;  it  is  a  question 
of  predominance.  .  .  .  Nothing,  they  say,  is 
just  or  beautiful  or  ugly  intrinsically  and  by  na¬ 
ture,  but  by  law  and  convention.  Nevertheless  a 


ARISTIPPUS 


5 

sensible  man  will  not  do  anything  shocking,  by 
reason  of  the  penalties  imposed  and  for  the  sake 
of  popular  opinion.” 

Sextus  in  his  treatment  of  the  school  dwells 
naturally  more  on  the  rational  basis  of  their  the¬ 
ory.  The  only  criterion  of  knowledge  we  have  is 
in  the  sensations,  or  immediate  affections  ( pa - 
the)  ;  these  alone  are  comprehensible  and  intrin¬ 
sically  true,  whereas  of  the  causes  of  these  sen¬ 
sations  we  have  no  sure  knowledge.  We  know 
when  we  have  the  sensation  of  white  or  sweet, 
and  can  affirm  that  we  have  at  this  moment  such 
or  such  a  sensation,  veraciously  and  with  no  fear 
of  contradiction ;  but  of  what  lies  behind  or  be¬ 
yond  this  sensation  we  can  say  nothing  certain. 
We  cannot  even  say  that  a  particular  object  is 
white  or  sweet,  for  in  another  person,  or  in  our¬ 
selves  at  another  moment,  this  same  object  may 
produce  quite  a  different  sensation.  Nor  have 
we  any  right  to  suppose  that  the  particular  sen¬ 
sation  which  we  call  white  or  sweet  is  the  same 
as  that  which  another  person  calls  by  the  same 
name.  We  know  only  our  own  sensations,  and 
all  that  is  common  in  such  abstractions  as  white¬ 
ness  or  sweetness  is  merely  the  word.2 

Fitted  together  the  expositions  of  Diogenes 
and  Sextus  maybe  summed  up  in  the  three  max- 
2 Adv.  Math.  VII,  191. 


6 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


ims:  Sensations  alone  are  comprehensible,  sen¬ 
sations  and  not  their  causes ;  The  end  of  life  is  to 
live  pleasurably ;  The  particular  pleasure  is  de¬ 
sirable  for  itself, whereas  happiness  is  not  desir¬ 
able  for  itself  but  for  the  particular  pleasures 
which  compose  it. 

Of  all  philosophies  this,  I  take  it,  is  the  easiest 
to  understand ;  and,  granted  its  hypothesis  that 
the  only  certain  facts  in  our  experience  are  the 
immediate  sensations  of  pleasure  and  pain  as 
these  come  and  go  and  come  again,  granted  so 
much  as  that  Plato’s  Ideal  world,  or  its  equiva¬ 
lent,  is  a  vapour  raised  by  hope  and  nothing 
more,  the  “dream  of  a  shadow,”  it  is  of  all  dog¬ 
matic  philosophies  the  most  rigidly  logical  and 
the  most  thoroughly  consistent  and  the  most  im¬ 
mediately  persuasive.  It  is  the  wisdom  of  the 
world,  preached  in  effect  and  practised  long  be¬ 
fore  Aristippus  reduced  it  to  a  formulary.  You 
shall  find  it  in  the  poets  of  the  old  times,  Mi  ni¬ 
ne  rmiis  and  Theognis  and  their  kind,  who  sang 
in  various  notes  to  the  refrain  of  carpe  diem. 
Whether  Aristippus  really  quoted  much  from 
them,  we  do  not  know ;  but  it  can  be  asserted  of 
his  hedonism  that  it  was  rooted  in  their  voluptu¬ 
ary  principles,  and  his  admonitions,  as  Sextus 
said  of  other  philosophers,  might  have  been 


ARISTIPPUS 


7 

sealed  by  the  authority  of  many  a  gnomic  verse 
and  stanza.3  And  it  was  equally  a  possession  of 
the  future  to  be  followed  by  innumerable  Cy- 
renaics  who  had  never  heard  the  name.  As  a  man¬ 
ner  of  life  it  is  of  all  time ;  as  a  reasoned  theory 
it  is  affiliated  manifestly  with  the  principles  of 
the  more  sceptical  Sophists,  particularly  with 
the  famous  doctrine  of  Protagoras  that  man  is 
the  measure  of  all  things,  as  this  was  taken  in 
conjunction  with  the  widely  accepted  aphorism 
of  Heraclitus:  All  things  pass  and  nothing 
abides.4  How  these  two  principles  flowed  to¬ 
gether  in  a  purely  sensational  and  atomistic  the¬ 
ory  of  knowledge,  Plato  has  shown  at  length  in 
the  Theaetetus. 

The  puzzling  question  is  rather  to  understand 
how  two  such  divergent  schools  as  the  Academic 
and  the  Cyrenaic  could  have  been  created  by  men 
who  professed  allegiance  to  one  and  the  same 
person.  Plato’s  relation  to  his  master  is  clear 
enough ;  but  what  business  had  this  denier  of  the 
gods,  this  repudiator  of  the  living  reality  of  jus¬ 
tice  and  all  moral  law,  this  hardened  materialist, 
with  the  honest  disciples  of  Socrates?  Yet  it  is  a 

3 Adv.  Math.  1,071. 

4The  historical  affiliation  cannot  be  doubted.  The  logical  relation 
of  the  various  schools  of  sensationalism  and  scepticism  to  Hera¬ 
clitus,  Democritus,  and  Protagoras  will  be  discussed  in  our  last 
chapter. 


8 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


fact,  as  we  learn  from  the  Plfiaedo,  that  he  was 
close  to  the  master,  so  close  that  his  absence  was 
noted  from  the  little  band  who  stayed  with  Soc¬ 
rates  through  the  last  day  in  gaol. 

The  explanation,  one  may  say,  is  that  in  Soc¬ 
rates’  mind  the  various  elements  of  the  Platonic 
philosophy  lay  side  by  side  without  having  been 
merged  together  into  a  homogeneous  system; 
hence  it  was  possible  for  men  of  such  utterly 
divergent  tempers  as  Aristippus  and  Euclides 
and,  as  we  shall  see,  Antisthenes  to  find  in  his 
words  substance  for  their  reflexion  and  confir¬ 
mation  of  their  aims.  For  his  part,  Aristippus 
simply  laid  hold  of  the  hedonism  which,  if  we  ac¬ 
cept  the  Protagoras  of  Plato  as  historical  in  this 
respect,  formed  an  integral  part  of  the  Socratic 
doctrine,  and  developed  this  independently  in  a 
manner  which  Socrates  certainly  would  have  re¬ 
pudiated.  Socrates  apparently  took  happiness 
as  the  criterion  of  right  conduct,  and  understood 
happiness  rather  naively  as  a  balance  of  pleas¬ 
ures,  without  attempting  to  reconcile  such  a  cri¬ 
terion  with  his  affirmation  of  the  everlasting  re¬ 
alities  of  good  and  evil.  He  left  it  to  his  great 
disciple  to  effect  such  a  reconciliation,  or  per¬ 
haps  we  should  say  modification,  by  drawing 
a  distinction  between  pleasure  in  the  ordinary 


ARISTIPPUS 


9 

sense  and  another  feeling,  which  he  called  hap¬ 
piness  (eudaimonia) ,  akin  to  pleasure  superfi¬ 
cially  but  associated  with  an  essentially  differ¬ 
ent  sphere  of  the  soul’s  activity.  Such  was  not 
the  way  of  Aristippus.  The  apparent  paradox 
of  Socrates  he  escaped  by  accepting  only  the 
hedonism  and  rejecting  everything  that  might 
conflict  with  it.  And  then,  having  attained  this 
point  of  consistency,  he  further  altered  the  So- 
cratic  point  of  view  by  defining  pleasure  in  terms 
of  the  Protagorean  sensationalism  and  the  Hera- 
clitean  flux.  So  it  was  that  the  Socratic  hedon¬ 
ism  became  the  Cyrenaic  pursuit  of  the  passing 
pleasures  of  the  body.  It  is  true  that  Aristippus 
saw,  as  anyone  must  see  who  thinks  at  all,  that 
some  pleasures  bring  very  disagreeable  conse¬ 
quences,  and  must  be  forgone;  yet  it  was  still 
the  momentary  sensation  he  made  his  end,  as  the 
one  thing  sure  and  desirable. 

So  far  one  can  see  how  Aristippus  may  be 
called  a  perverted,  or  at  least  an  imperfect,  So¬ 
cratic,  but  on  another  side  he  was  truer  to  the 
spirit,  if  not  the  spirituality,  of  the  master.  Prob¬ 
ably,  after  all,  what  drew  and  held  the  inquisitive 
young  men  who  congregated  about  this  strange 
teacher  and  preacher  of  the  streets  was  not  so 
much  any  particular  doctrine  as  it  was  the  power 


10 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


of  his  life,  his  imperturbable  courage  and  cheer 
in  a  world  where  these  were  terribly  needed,  a 
sense  of  mastery  that  emanated  from  his  glance 
and  his  very  gesture,  the  central  calm  in  his  heart 
beyond  the  reach  and  understanding  of  idle  cu¬ 
riosity  yet  strangely  visible  and  fascinating  to 
those  who  approached  him  nearly, — the  embodi¬ 
ment,  as  it  were,  of  everything  summed  up  in 
the  Greek  tradition  by  those  hauntingly  beauti¬ 
ful  words  eleutheria  and  asphaleia ,  liberty  and 
security.  Here  was  liberty,  the  free  man,  the 
man  secure  in  himself  against  all  the  chances  of 
life,  the  man  sufficient  unto  himself,  autarkes. 
Now  it  is  evident  that  Aristippus  was  impressed 
by  the  need  of  attaining  something  like  this  same 
liberty  and  security  of  mind  in  his  pursuit  of 
what  the  fleeting  moment  might  yield;  other¬ 
wise,  he  saw,  there  could  be  no  joy  in  the  pursuit 
but  only  a  tortured  dependence  on  the  fluctua¬ 
tions  of  success  and  failure.  It  is,  indeed,  this 
conception  of  liberty  and  security  meeting  to¬ 
gether  in  self-sufficiency  as  a  necessary  factor  of 
the  life  of  pleasure,  that  makes  him  a  philoso¬ 
pher  and  something  more,  if  not  better,  than  the 
idle  voluptuary.  To  this  end  he  would  be  always 
master  of  himself,  and,  so  far  as  possible,  mas¬ 
ter  of  events  by  adapting  himself  voluntarily 


ARISTIPPUS 


11 


and  adroitly  to  the  changing  conditions  of  for¬ 
tune  and  society — “every  colour  and  condition 
became  Aristippus.”  And  so  it  was  that  Horace 
could  say : 

Nunc  in  Aristippi  furtim  praecepta  relabor , 

Et  mihi  res  non  me  rebus  subiungere  conor. 

The  formal  precepts  by  which  Aristippus  in¬ 
culcated  this  theory  are  gone  with  his  books,  but 
we  have  a  sufficient  number  of  anecdotes  which 
indicate  how  he  put  his  philosophy  into  practice. 
One  day  Diogenes  the  Cynic,5  who  was  washing 
some  potherbs,  ridiculed  him  as  he  passed  by,  and 
said,  “If  you  had  learnt  to  satisfy  yourself  with 
these  you  would  not  have  been  serving  in  the 
courts  of  tyrants.”  To  which  Aristippus  replied, 
“And  you,  if  you  knew  how  to  behave  among 
men,  would  not  be  washing  potherbs.”  Being 
asked  once  what  advantage  he  had  derived  from 
philosophy,  he  said,  “That  I  am  able  to  associate 
confidently  with  any  man.”  To  the  question  of 
Dionysius  why  philosophers  haunted  the  doors 
of  the  rich  but  the  rich  did  not  frequent  those  of 
philosophers,  he  retorted,  “Because  philosophers 
know  what  they  need  and  the  rich  do  not.”  An¬ 
other  time,  at  dinner,  when  the  tyrant  was  try- 

slt  is  important  to  distinguish  between  this  Diogenes  of  Sinope, 
the  Cynic,  and  Diogenes  of  Laerte,  the  historian  of  philosophy, 
who  lived  much  later. 


12 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


ing  to  drag  him  into  philosophical  talk  against 
his  will,  he  defended  himself  by  saying,  “It  is 
absurd  if  you  are  learning  from  me  to  discourse, 
yet  are  teaching  me  when  I  ought  to  discourse.” 
Dionysius  was  vexed  at  this,  and  showed  his  dis¬ 
pleasure  by  sending  the  philosopher  to  the  bot¬ 
tom  of  the  table.  Whereupon  Aristippus :  “You 
wished  to  make  this  place  more  respectable.”  At 
another  time,  when  Dionysius  asked  him  why 
he  had  come  to  Sicily,  his  reply  was:  “When  I 
wanted  wisdom  I  went  to  Socrates,  but  now, 
wanting  money,  I  have  come  to  you” ;  or,  as  the 
story  is  otherwise  related,  “I  went  to  Socrates 
for  instruction  (paideia) ,  to  Dionysius  for  di¬ 
version  ( paidia ) .”  Again,  he  was  begging  a 
favour  for  a  friend,  and,  being  refused,  fell  at 
the  tyrant’s  feet ;  and  when  someone  reproached 
him  for  his  conduct,  his  retort  was :  “I  am  not  to 
blame,  but  Dionysius  who  has  his  ears  in  his 
feet.”  Whether  this  biting  retort  was  made  in 
the  presence  of  the  tyrant  himself,  does  not  ap¬ 
pear  from  the  record;  but  certainly  in  the  ruler’s 
absence  he  could  take  down  the  arrogance  of  a 
misguided  courtier  in  a  manner  worthy  of  the 
cynic  Diogenes,  whose  savage  disregard  of  the 
proprieties  he  seems  indeed  sometimes  to  have 
forestalled.  And  he  was  equally  quick  to  defend 


ARISTIPPUS 


13 

his  own  indulgences.  A  certain  sophist,  visiting 
him  and  seeing  the  women  he  had  about  him  and 
the  lavishness  of  his  table,  was  unwary  enough 
to  express  censure.  Aristippus  waited  a  mo¬ 
ment,  and  invited  the  sophist  to  pass  the  day 
with  him,  and  then,  when  the  invitation  was  ac¬ 
cepted,  observed:  “You  seem  to  have  a  quarrel 
with  the  expense  and  not  the  luxury  of  my  din¬ 
ners.”  Another  time  his  servant  murmured  at 
the  weight  of  a  sack  of  money  he  was  carrying 
for  him  on  the  road,  and  Aristippus  merely  said, 
“Pour  out  what  is  too  much  for  you  and  carry 
what  you  can.” 

Perhaps  some  apology  is  needed  for  stringing 
together  these  tales  out  of  the  only  history  of 
Greek  philosophy  that  has  come  down  to  us.  But 
in  fact  they  are  not  so  irrelevant  as  they  may 
seem ;  they  show  probably  as  well  as  any  of  the 
author’s  works  would  have  done  the  kind  of  ver¬ 
satility  which  the  wily  philosopher  of  Cyrene, 
like  another  Odysseus,  acquired  in  his  search  for 
pleasure  through  many  cities  and  many  species 
of  men.  They  might  perhaps  all  be  summed  up 
in  his  one  famous  saying  when  reproached  for 
living  with  Lais  the  courtesan:  “I  possess  her,  I 
am  not  possessed  by  her,  since  the  best  thing  is 
not  to  forbear  pleasures,  but  to  grasp  them  with- 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


H 

out  suffering  their  mastery.”  Habeo,  non  habeor: 
that  is  the  key  by  which  the  Cyrenaic  would  open 
the  door  to  the  liberty  and  security  of  philoso¬ 
phy,  while  acknowledging  no  good  beyond  the 
indulgence  in  whatever  the  swift-flowing  cur¬ 
rent  of  time  might  lay  at  his  feet.  Hedonism  was 
no  new  thing  in  Greece,  or  in  the  world ;  but  the 
poets  who  were  its  professing  votaries  had  been 
so  weakly  uncertain  of  their  tenure,  rather  had 
been  so  positively  certain  that  happiness  was  the 
flower  of  one  brief  moment  of  life,  and,  going, 
left  behind  only  the  winter  of  discontent. 

“Gather  my  youth,  O  heart,  before  it  fly  ! 

Soon  other  men  shall  be,  no  doubt ;  but  I 
An  earthen  clod  in  the  dark  earth  shall  lie” — 

was  the  admonition  of  Theognis ;  and  Mimner- 
mus  had  sung  the  same  truth  in  more  despondent 
language : 

“What  then  is  life,  what  pleasure,  when  afar 
Sinks  golden  Aphrodite’s  star  ? 

Ah,  death  for  me,  when  love  in  secret  lifts 
No  more  the  heart,  and  honeyed  gifts 
Charm  not,  and  slumber  fails,  and  all  the  flowers 
That  fill  the  garden  of  young  hours. 

So  as  the  leaves  put  forth  upon  the  boughs, 

In  springtide,  when  the  sun  allows, 

Like  these  a  little  time  the  bloom  of  youth 
Delights  us,  and  we  know  no  truth 


ARISTIPPUS 


15 


Of  good  and  evil  from  the  gods.  Yet  still 
The  F ates  are  near  to  work  their  will, — 

One  with  the  term  of  age  and  palsied  breath, 

One  with  the  blacker  term  of  death.” 

Call  no  man  happy  until  the  end!  Not  only 
are  such  pleasures  ephemeral  at  the  best,  but 
there  is  always  the  danger  that  they  may  escape 
us  entirely .  A  little  change,  a  grain  of  dust  blow¬ 
ing  into  the  eye,  a  slip  of  the  foot,  pestilence  walk¬ 
ing  in  the  street,  the  betrayal  or  the  misfortune 
of  friends,  the  tyranny  of  enemies, — and  the 
power  of  enjoyment  is  gone,  while  the  capacity 
of  suffering  remains.  Man  is  terribly  subject  to 
chance  in  these  matters,  his  will  has  the  feeblest 
grasp  upon  them,  and  in  the  end  chance  throws 
off  its  mask  and  shows  itself  as  a  remorseless  fa¬ 
tality.  It  was  against  this  treachery  of  accident 
and  despotism  of  fate  that  Aristippus  sought  a 
brave  defence  by  the  shifts  of  an  infinitely  clever 
versatility  and  by  calling  himself  the  master  and 
not  the  slave  of  pleasure.  Habeo,  non  haheor. 
In  his  practice  there  was  no  doubt  a  latent  dual¬ 
ism,  an  unacknowledged  trust  in  some  resource 
of  the  soul  apart  from  and  superior  to  the  suc¬ 
cession  of  sensations  evoked  by  contact  with  the 
world ;  but  at  the  last  we  are  as  we  believe  we  are, 
and  our  destiny  is  in  the  creed  we  profess.  If 


i6 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


physical  sensation  is  pronounced  to  be  all,  if  we 
have  no  secure  place  save  in  the  feeling  of  the 
moment,  what  is  left  but  a  dull  vacuity  when 
pleasure  is  absent,  unless  pain  rushes  in  to  fill 
the  void?  The  boasted  liberation  of  our  philoso¬ 
phy  turns  out  under  the  stress  of  life  to  be  some¬ 
thing  very  like  mockery:  Habeor ,  non  habeo . 

The  inevitable  end  of  the  Cyrenaic  creed  if 
held  sincerely  and  unflinchingly — as  however  in 
the  complexity  of  nature  few  men  actually  do 
hold  it — is  the  kind  of  grim  jesting  that  runs 
through  so  much  of  the  Greek  Anthology : 

“  All  is  laughter,  and  all  is  dust,  and  all  is  noth¬ 
ing;  for  out  of  unreason  spring  all  things  that 
are.” 

“You  speak  much,  O  man,  but  after  a  little 
you  are  laid  in  the  ground.  Be  silent,  and  while 
still  alive  turn  your  thoughts  upon  death.”6 

It  is  an  oft-repeated  truism  that  extremes 
meet ;  and  so  we  see  the  Cyrenaic,  who  has  staked 
his  hopes  on  the  accidental  favours  of  this  world, 
subscribing  the  same  lesson  as  the  Platonist,  who 
was  ready  to  risk  all  on  his  belief  in  another 

sGlycon: 

IldvTa  /cat  irdvra  kSvis  /cat  irdvra  rb  p.r/dtt'  • 

irdvra  yap  akoywv  earl  rot  yiyvopLeva. 

Palladas: 

IloXXd  XaXets,  tivdptoTre,  %a/aat  8b  n6rj  p.era  puKpbv  • 
alya,  Kal  yaeX^ra  %G>v  eri  rbv  d&varov. 


ARISTIPPUS 


17 


world, — life  is  a  study  of  death.  It  is  the  same 
precept,  but  with  what  a  change !  Cicero  tells  of 
a  certain  Cyrenaic  named  Hegesias,  who  argued 
so  eloquently  for  death  as  a  release  from  evils 
that  he  was  forbidden  by  King  Ptolemaeus  from 
teaching  in  the  schools  a  philosophy  which  per¬ 
suaded  many  of  his  pupils  to  commit  suicide.7 


iTusc.  Disp.  I,  34. 


CHAPTER  II 


EPICURUS 

I 

Of  Epicurus,  whose  name  has  become  a  syno¬ 
nym  for  the  philosophy  of  pleasure,  we  know 
not  a  great  deal,  but  rather  more  than  of  his  pre¬ 
decessor  from  Cyrene.  He  was  horn  of  an  Athe¬ 
nian  father,  a  school  teacher,  in  Samos  in  341  b.c. 
His  mother,  according  to  the  chronique  scanda- 
leuse  which  passed  in  ancient  times  for  the  his¬ 
tory  of  philosophy,  was  engaged  in  the  disrepu¬ 
table  business  of  selling  charms  and  practising 
magical  rites  for  the  propitiation  of  the  gods; 
and  the  boy  helped  both  his  parents  in  their 
trades.  One  can  surmise  that  from  his  mother’s 
occupation  Epicurus  acquired  an  early  hatred 
of  superstition.  At  the  age  of  eighteen  he  went 
to  Athens,  where  he  stayed  but  a  short  time,  and 
then  led  a  more  or  less  wandering  life  until  he 
returned  to  the  city  in  306  as  a  teacher  of  phi¬ 
losophy  with  several  adherents.  Here  he  bought 


18 


EPICURUS 


19 

a  garden  beyond  the  walls  for  80  minae  (about 
$1600 ) ,  where  he  set  up  his  school,  or  where,  one 
might  say  more  precisely,  he  lived  with  his  friends 
and  pupils,  men  and  women,  in  what  might  he 
called  a  state  of  plain  living  and  moderately  high 
thinking.  At  the  time  of  his  settling  Plato  had 
been  dead  forty-one  years  and  Aristippus  some¬ 
what  longer ;  Polemo  was  the  head  of  the  Acad¬ 
emy  and  Theophrastus  of  the  Lyceum ;  Zeno,  a 
slightly  younger  man,  was  living  in  Athens,  and 
probably  had  already  opened  his  school  in  the 
Painted  Porch.  Death  came  to  him  in  270,  at 
the  age  of  seventy  or  seventy-one. 

Epicurus  was  a  voluminous  writer,  leaving  be¬ 
hind  him  some  three  hundred  separate  treatises. 
It  is  curious  that  the  great  advocate  of  ease  and 
pleasure  should  have  cared  little  for  the  comfort 
of  his  readers.  Ancient  critics  complained  of  his 
disorderly  composition,  and  the  modern  student 
finds  his  language  one  of  the  most  difficult,  not 
to  say  repellent,  styles  of  all  the  Greek  philoso¬ 
phers.  His  primary  works  are  lost,  as  is  the  so- 
called  larger  epitome  of  them  made  by  his  own 
hand.  There  was  also  a  smaller  epitome,  parts  of 
which,  apparently,  are  preserved  by  Diogenes 
Laertius .  W e  have  besides  this  a  remarkable  sum¬ 
mary  of  his  doctrine  in  forty  aphorisms  or  Mas- 


20 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


ter  Sayings.  The  poem  of  Lucretius  is  based 
probably  on  the  larger  epitome,  and  there  are  a 
great  number  of  allusions  to  and  quotations  from 
his  works  in  other  Greek  and  Latin  authors.  Al¬ 
together  we  have  a  pretty  full  report  of  the  main 
tenets  of  his  philosophy;  how  far  we  understand 
them  is  another  matter. 

The  difficulty  that  confronts  us  when  we  try 
to  understand  Epicurus  is  the  extraordinary 
paradox  of  his  logic.  What,  in  a  word,  is  to  be 
said  of  a  philosophy  that  begins  with  regarding 
pleasure  as  the  only  positive  good  and  ends  by 
emptying  pleasure  of  all  positive  content  ?  There 
is  no  possibility,  I  think,  of  really  reconciling  this 
blunt  contradiction,  which  was  sufficiently  ob¬ 
vious  to  the  enemies  of  Epicurus  in  antiquity, 
but  it  is  possible,  with  the  aid  of  Plutarch’s  shrewd 
analysis,1  to  follow  him  step  by  step  from  his 
premises  to  his  conclusions,  and  so  to  discover 
the  source  of  his  entanglement. 

Epicurus  began  with  the  materialistic  and 
monistic  theses  which  had  allured  Aristippus, 
and  which,  mingled  in  varying  proportions  from 
the  teaching  of  Heraclitus  and  Protagoras  and 
Democritus,  had  come  to  be  the  prevailing  be¬ 
lief  of  the  Greek  people ;  they  were,  indeed,  no 

1  Non  Posse  Suaviter  Vivi  Secundum  Epicurum.  I  draw  freely  on 
the  racy  language  of  the  old  English  translation. 


EPICURUS  21 

more  than  the  essence  refined  out  of  the  voluble 
lecturing  and  debating  of  the  so-called  sophists 
against  whom  Socrates  and  Plato  had  waged  a 
relentless  but  unsuccessful  warfare.  This  visible 
palpable  world  of  bodies  is  the  only  reality,  and 
the  only  thing  which  to  man,  in  such  a  world,  has 
any  certain  value  is  his  own  immediate  physical 
sensations.  Pleasure  we  feel  and  pain  we  feel,  in 
their  various  degrees  and  complications ;  and  we 
know  that  all  men  welcome  pleasure  and  shrink 
from  pain  by  a  necessity  of  nature.  Pleasure,  in 
fact,  is  simply  a  name  for  the  sensation  which 
we  do  welcome,  and  pain  for  the  sensation  from 
which  we  do  shrink.  The  example  of  infants  and 
animals  is  before  us  to  nullify  any  attempt  to 
argue  away  this  primary  distinction. 

These  are  the  premises  of  Epicurus,  as  they 
had  been  of  Aristippus,  and  to  these  he  will  cling 
through  thick  and  thin,  whatever  their  conse¬ 
quences  may  be  and  however  they  may  entangle 
him  in  self-contradictions. He  seems  even  to  have 
gone  out  of  his  way  at  times  to  find  the  grossest 
terms  to  express  the  doctrine,  whether  his  mo¬ 
tive  was  to  shock  the  Philistines  of  morality  or 
to  fortify  himself  and  his  friends  in  their  posi¬ 
tive  belief.  The  avowed  programme  of  the  school 
was  “not  to  save  the  Greeks,  but  to  indulge  the 


22 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


belly  to  the  limit  of  safety  with  meat  and  drink”; 
and  in  a  letter  to  a  friend  Epicurus  says :  “I  in¬ 
vite  you  to  continuous  pleasures,  not  to  virtues 
that  unsettle  the  mind  with  vain  and  empty  hopes 
of  fruition.”  The  programme  is  simple  enough 
in  all  conscience,  and  might  satisfy  the  most  cyn¬ 
ical  votary  of  the  flesh,  but,  desiring  like  his  pre¬ 
decessor  to  be  a  voluptuary,  Epicurus  was  driven 
despite  himself  to  be  a  philosopher,  even  more  a 
philosopher  than  the  Cyrenaic,  whether  his  wis¬ 
dom  came  from  deeper  reflection  or  greater  ti¬ 
midity.  His  experience  might  be  described  as  the 
opposite  of  that  of  Johnson’s  humble  acquaint¬ 
ance  who  had  been  trying  all  his  life  to  attain  phi¬ 
losophy  but  failed  because  cheerfulness  would 
break  in.  Aristippus  could  make  a  boast  of  his 
HabeOj  non  habeor,  but,  however  he  might  twist 
about,  his  dependence  on  the  fleeting  sensation 
of  the  moment  left  him  at  last  a  prey  to  the  haz¬ 
ards  of  circumstance.  Clearly  the  hedonist  who 
was  enough  of  a  philosopher  to  aim  at  liberty 
and  security  must  embrace  a  wider  view  of  life 
than  the  Cyrenaic;  and  so  the  first  step  of  Epi¬ 
curus  was  to  take  happiness,  conceived  as  a  con¬ 
tinuous  state  of  pleasure,  rather  than  particular 
pleasures,  for  the  goal.  This  is  the  initial,  and 
perhaps  the  most  fundamental,  difference  be- 


EPICURUS 


^3 

tween  the  strictly  Epicurean  and  the  Cyrenaie 
brand  of  hedonism. 

But  how,  taking  individual  pleasures  still  in 
the  grossly  physical  sense,  was  a  man  to  assure 
himself  of  their  consummation  in  happiness  ?  It 
was  well  to  make  a  god  of  the  belly  and,  in  the 
Epicurean  language,  of  any  other  passage  of  the 
body  that  admitted  pleasure  and  not  pain,  but, 
as  soon  as  he  began  to  reflect,  the  philosopher 
was  confronted  by  the  ugly  fact  that  the  en¬ 
trances  of  pain  are  more  numerous  than  those 
of  pleasure,  and  that  the  paroxysms  of  pain  may 
surpass  in  intensity  any  conceivable  pleasure. 
He  saw  that  there  was  something  ephemeral  and 
insecure  in  the  very  nature  of  pleasure,  whereas 
pain  had  terrible  rights  over  the  flesh,  and  could 
dispute  her  domain  with  a  vigour  far  beyond  the 
power  of  her  antagonist.  Evidently,  in  a  world 
so  constituted,  the  aim  of  the  philosopher  will  be 
lowered  from  a  bold  search  for  sensations  to  the 
humbler  task  of  attaining  some  measure  of  se¬ 
curity  against  forces  he  cannot  control;  and  so, 
I  think,  we  shall  interpret  the  curious  phenome¬ 
non  that  the  greatest  of  all  hedonists  was  driven 
to  a  purely  defensive  attitude  towards  life.  On 
the  one  hand  he  knew,  as  Plato  had  shown,  that 
the  recovery  from  disease  and  the  relief  from  an- 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


24 

guish  do  bring  a  sense  of  active  well-being,  and 
hence  it  was  possible  for  him  to  define  pleasure 
in  negative  terms  without  seeming  to  contradict 
flagrantly  his  grosser  views  about  the  belly  and 
other  bodily  organs.  Again,  since  positive  pleas¬ 
ure  and  pain  by  some  law  of  nature  are  so  inti¬ 
mately  bound  together  that  the  cessation  of  one 
is  associated  with  access  of  the  other,2  then,  clear¬ 
ly,  the  only  pleasure  free  of  this  unpleasant  ter¬ 
mination  is  that  which  is  itself  not  positively  in¬ 
duced  but  comes  as  the  result  of  receding  pain. 
For  the  content  of  happiness,  therefore,  the  Epi¬ 
curean  will  look  to  sensation  ota  negative  sort: 
“The  limit  of  pleasure  is  reached  by  the  removal 
of  all  that  gives  pain,”  and  “Pleasure  in  the  flesh 
admits  no  increase,  when  once  the  pain  of  want 
is  removed;  it  can  only  be  variegated.”3 

But  the  philosopher  cannot  stop  here.  Such  a 
state  of  release,  though  in  itself  it  may  not  be 
subject  to  the  laws  of  alternative  pleasure  and 
pain,  is  yet  open  to  interruption  from  the  haz¬ 
ards  of  life.  And  so  Epicurus,  in  his  pursuit  of 
happiness,  is  carried  a  step  further.  Not  on  the 
present  possession  of  pleasure,  whether  positive 

2This  association  of  pleasure  and  pain  was  familiar  to  Plato.  He 
refers  to  it  in  Phaedo  60b,  and  deals  with  it  at  greater  length  in 
the  Philebus. 

3 Sayings  3  and  18.  In  my  quotations  I  sometimes  adopt  the  lan¬ 
guage  of  the  excellent  versions  in  R.  D.  Hicks’s  Stoic  and  Epi¬ 
curean. 


EPICURUS 


25 

or  negative,  will  he  depend  for  security  of  hap¬ 
piness,  but  on  the  power  of  memory.  Here,  at 
least,  we  appear  to  be  free  and  safe,  for  memory 
is  our  own.  Nothing  can  deprive  us  of  that  recol¬ 
lected  joy,  “which  is  the  bliss  of  solitude” ;  even 
what  was  distressful  at  the  time  may  often,  by 
some  alchemy  of  the  mind,  be  transmuted  into  a 
happy  reminiscence : 

“Things  which  offend  when  present,  and  affright, 

In  memory,  well  painted,  move  delight.”4 

The  true  hedonism,  then,  will  be  a  creation  in  the 
mind  from  material  furnished  it  by  the  body. 
Plutarch  describes  the  procedure  of  Epicurus 
thus,  and  exposes  also  its  inadequacy:  — 

Seeing  that  the  field  of  joy  in  our  poor  bodies 
cannot  be  smooth  and  equal,  but  harsh  and  bro¬ 
ken  and  mingled  with  much  that  is  contrary,  he 
transfers  the  exercise  of  philosophy  from  the 
flesh,  as  from  a  lean  and  barren  soil,  to  the  mind, 
in  the  hopes  of  enjoying  there,  as  it  were,  large 
pastures  and  fair  meadows  of  delight.  Not  in  the 
body  but  in  the  soul  is  the  true  garden  of  the  Epi¬ 
curean  to  be  cultivated.  It  might  seem  as  if  by 
the  waving  of  a  magic  wand  we  had  been  trans¬ 
lated  from  a  materialistic  hedonism  to  a  region 
like  that  in  which  Socrates  and  Plato  looked  for 


4Cowley,  Upon  His  Majesty’s  Restoration. 


26 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


unearthly  happiness.  But  in  fact  there  is  no  such 
magic  for  the  Epicurean.  The  source  of  the  pleas¬ 
ures  which  compose  our  happiness  is  still  phys¬ 
ical,  and  only  physical ;  the  office  of  the  soul,  so- 
called,  is  merely  to  retain  by  an  act  of  selective 
memory  the  scattered  impressions  of  sensuous 
pleasure  and  to  forestall  these  by  an  act  of  selec¬ 
tive  expectation.  If  you  hear  the  Epicurean  cry¬ 
ing  out  and  testifying  that  the  soul  has  no  power 
of  j  oy  and  tranquillity  save  in  what  it  draws  from 
the  flesh,  and  that  this  is  its  only  good,  what  can 
you  say  but  that  he  uses  the  soul  as  a  kind  of  ves¬ 
sel  to  receive  the  strainings  from  the  body,  as 
men  rack  wine  from  an  old  and  leaky  jar  into  a 
new  one  to  take  age,  and  so  think  they  have  done 
some  wonderful  thing.  And  no  doubt  wine  may 
be  kept  and  mellowed  with  time,  but  the  soul 
preserves  no  more  than  a  feeble  scent  of  what  it 
takes  into  memory;  for  pleasure,  as  soon  as  it 
has  given  out  one  hiss  in  the  body,  forthwith  ex¬ 
pires,  and  that  little  of  it  which  lags  behind  in 
memory  is  but  flat  and  like  a  queasy  fume,  as  if 
a  man  should  undertake  to  feed  himself  today 
on  the  stale  recollection  of  what  he  ate  and  drank 
yesterday.  What  the  Epicureans  have  is  but  the 
empty  shadow  and  dream  of  a  pleasure  that  has 
taken  wing  and  fled  away,  and  that  serves  but 


EPICURUS 


27 

for  fuel  to  foment  their  untamed  desires,  as  in 
sleep  the  unreal  satisfaction  of  thirst  and  love 
only  stings  to  a  sharper  lust  of  waking  intem¬ 
perance. 

Memory,  though  it  promise  a  release  from  the 
vicissitudes  of  fortune,  is  still  too  dependent  on 
the  facts  of  life,  too  deeply  implicated  in  the  re¬ 
currence  of  passionate  desires.  There  is  no  final¬ 
ity  of  happiness  here,  and  so  the  Epicurean  is 
driven  on  to  further  refinement.  If  pushed  hard, 
he  will  take  refuge  in  imagining  a  possible  pain¬ 
lessness  of  the  body  and  a  possible  stability  of 
untroubled  ease.  Life  itself,  in  some  rare  in¬ 
stances,  may  afford  the  substance  of  this  com¬ 
fort,  and  memory  then  will  be  sufficient;  but  if 
the  substance  eludes  us,  we  have  still  that  within 

us  which  bv  the  exercise  of  free  will  can  lull  the 
•/ 

mind  into  fancying  it  remembers  what  it  never 
possessed.  Step  by  step  the  reflective  hedonist 
has  been  driven  by  the  lessons  of  experience  from 
the  pursuit  of  positive  pleasure  to  acquiescence  in 
pleasure  conceived  as  the  removal  of  pain ;  from 
present  ease  in  the  flesh  to  the  subtilizing  power 
of  memory  in  the  mind,  and,  when  memory  is 
starved,  to  the  voluntary  imagination  that  life 
has  gone  well  with  him.  The  fabled  ataraxy,  or 
imperturbable  calm,  of  the  Epicurean  turns  out 


28 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


to  be  something  very  like  a  pale  beatitude  of 
illusory  abstraction  from  the  tyranny  of  facts, 
the  wilful  mirage  of  a  soul  which  imagines  itself , 
but  is  not  really,  set  apart  from  the  material  uni¬ 
verse  of  chance  and  change.  Habeo ,  non  Jicibeor, 
was  the  challenge  of  Aristippus  to  the  world; 
the  master  of  the  Garden  will  be  content  with 
the  more  modest  half :  No?i  habeor. 

There  is  something  to‘  startle  the  mind  in 
this  defensive  conclusion  of  a  philosophy  which 
opened  its  attack  on  life  under  such  brave  and 
flaunting  colours.  There  is  much  to  cause  reflec¬ 
tion  when  one  considers  how  in  the  end  hedon- 

V/ 

ism  is  forced  into  an  unnatural  conjunction  with 
the  other  monistic  philosophy  with  which  its 
principles  are  in  such  violent  conflict.  For  this 
ataraxyof  the  avowed  lover  of  ease  and  pleasure 
can  scarcely  be  distinguished  from  the  apathy 
which  the  Stoic  devotees  of  pain  and  labour 
glorified  as  the  goal  of  life.  This  is  strange.  It  is 
stranger  still,  remembering  this  negative  con¬ 
clusion  of  Epicurean  and  Stoic,  by  which  good 
becomes  a  mere  deprivation  of  evil,  to  cast  the 
mind  forward  to  the  metaphysics  of  another  and 
later  school  of  monism  which  led  the  Neopla- 
tonist  to  reckon  evil  as  a  mere  deprivation  of  good. 
Into  such  paradoxical  combinations  and  antag- 


EPICURUS 


29 

onisms  we  are  driven  as  soon  as  we  try  to  shun 
the  simple  truth  that  good  is  good  and  evil  is 
evil,  each  in  its  own  right  and  judged  by  its  im¬ 
mediate  effect  in  the  soul. 

It  may  appear  from  the  foregoing  that  the 
hedonist,  in  his  pursuit  of  the  summrnn  bonum , 
argues  from  point  to  point  in  a  straight  line; 
in  practice  he  seems  rather  to  follow  no  single 
guide,  but  to  fluctuate  between  two  disparate 
yet  inseparable  motives.  At  one  time,  in  a  world 
where  physical  sensation  is  the  only  criterion  of 
truth  and  the  basis  of  all  reality,  the  liberty  of 
enjoyment  is  the  lure  that  draws  him  on;  at  an¬ 
other  time,  in  a  world  of  chance  and  change  or 
of  mechanical  law  which  takes  no  great  heed  of 
our  wants,  it  seems  as  if  security  from  misad¬ 
venture  must  be  the  limit  of  man’s  desire.  Other 
philosophers,  the  Platonist  in  his  vision  of  the 
world  of  Ideas,  the  Christian  in  his  submission 
to  the  will  of  God,  may  see  their  way  running 
straight  before  them  to  the  one  sure  goal  of  spir¬ 
itual  happiness,  in  which  liberty  and  security 
j  oin  hands.  The  path  of  the  hedonist  wavers  from 
side  to  side,  aiming  now  at  positive  pleasure  and 
now  at  mere  escape  from  pain;  and  this,  I  take 
it,  is  one  of  the  curious  reprisals  of  truth,  that 
the  dualist  should  have  in  view  a  single  end, 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


30 

whereas  the  monist  should  be  distracted  by  a 
double  purpose.  Whether  one  or  the  other  of  the 
revolving  objects  shall  stand  out  clearer  before 
the  hedonist’s  gaze,  will  depend  perhaps  chiefly 
upon  his  temperament.  With  an  Aristippus  the 
pleasure  of  the  moment  is  supreme,  though  he 
too  will  have  his  eye  open  for  the  need  of  safety ; 
with  an  Epicurus,  more  timid  by  nature  and 
more  reflective,  the  thought  of  security  at  the 
last  will  almost,  if  never  quite,  obliterate  the  en¬ 
ticement  of  pleasure.  It  was  still  as  a  good  Epi¬ 
curean  that  Horace  could  write : 

Sperne  voluptates,  nocet  empta  dolore  voluptas. 


II 

Certainly,  when  we  pass  from  consideration 
of  the  chief  good  to  the  philosophical  theories 
which  Epicurus  developed  to  explain  and  jus¬ 
tify  his  choice  of  that  good,  the  idea  of  security 
becomes  altogether  predominant ;  it  is  the  key¬ 
note  equally  of  his  ethics,  his  science,  and  his  at¬ 
titude  towards  religion. 

The  ethical  ideal  of  the  Garden  is  summed  up 
in  the  famous  maxim,  “Live  concealed”  ( lathe 
biosas) ,  or,  as  Horace  exquisitely  phrases  it,  the 


EPICURUS 


31 

fallentis  semita  vitae .  In  this  way  alone  would 
the  perfect  ataraxy  be  attained. 

Now  the  hidden  way  is  not  that  which  we 
admire  today,  much  as  in  other  respects  our 
thoughts  have  kept  the  colour  of  hedonism  and 
utilitarianism.  On  the  one  hand,  the  pleasures 
pursued  by  the  modern  voluptuary  are  likely  to 
be  that  of  the  busy  and  aggressive  sort  which 
cannot  easily  be  dissociated  from  the  noise  of 
crowds  and  the  distraction  of  ceaseless  motion, 
and  in  comparison  with  which  the  Garden  of 
Epicurus  would  seem  to  offer  but  a  wan  image 
of  life.  On  the  other  hand,  the  only  useful  career 
wre  commonly  understand  today  is  one  equally 
involved  in  the  restless  business  of  doing,  and 
our  commendation  is  reserved  for  those  who  are 
engaged  in  promoting  the  welfare  or  regulating 
the  morals  of  other  men.  To  shrink  from  the 
hazard  of  public  adventure  or  to  prize  the  re¬ 
finement  of  secrecy  is  branded  as  cowardly,  while 
concern  for  the  salvation  of  one’s  own  soul  is 
likely  to  be  reprehended  as  selfish  and  immoral. 
Hence  it  happens  that  both  the  vices  and  the 
virtues  of  the  present  age  have  brought  into  dis¬ 
repute  the  ancient  ideal  of  withdrawal  from  the 
distractions  of  life.  That  is  as  it  may  be.  But  at 
least  we  ought  to  keep  the  mind  clear  in  these 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


32 

matters,  and  not  to  lose  the  sense  of  distinctions. 
The  hidden  way  of  the  Epicurean  has  at  first 
sight  a  startling  resemblance  to  the  Platonic  and 
the  Christian  flight  from  the  world,  and  to  a  cer¬ 
tain  point  the  two  ideals  are  rooted  in  the  same 
soil;  but  to  ignore  their  difference  while  seeing 
their  similarity,  or  to  unite  them  in  the  same 
praise  or  condemnation,  would  be  the  error  of  a 
very  blind  psychology.  When  Gregory  of  Naz- 
ianzus,  in  accordance  with  the  direct  methods 
of  the  day,  had  been  captured  bodily  and  or¬ 
dained  a  priest  against  his  will,  he  first  fled  from 
this  act  of  “spiritual  despotism”  to  the  monastic 
retreat  of  his  friend  Basil  in  Pontus,  and  then, 
admitting  the  obligation  thrust  upon  him,  re¬ 
turned  to  his  charge.  And  this  was  in  part  his 
apology  to  the  people  for  his  precipitate  flight: 

“Info  my  heart  had  come  a  certain  longing  for 
the  beauty  of  the  quietness  of  solitude.  Of  this, 
indeed,  I  had  been  a  lover  from  the  beginning, 
as  I  know  not  whether  any  other  votary  of  let¬ 
ters  had  ever  loved  it ;  and  this,  amid  great  diffi¬ 
culties  and  trials,  I  had  made  my  vow  to  God. 
Some  taste  of  it  I  had  already  known,  having 
stood,  as  it  were,  in  its  vestibule,  so  that  my  de¬ 
sire  was  the  more  enkindled  by  experience ;  and 
I  could  not  tolerate  the  tyranny  that  was  thrust¬ 
ing  me  back  into  the  midst  of  noise  and  tumult, 
and  dragging  me  by  violence  from  the  better  life 


EPICURUS 


33 

as  from  a  sacred  asylum.  For  nothing  appeared 
to  me  so  desirable  for  a  man  as  this,  that,  closing 
the  eyes  of  the  senses,  and  withdrawing  from  the 
flesh  and  the  world  into  his  inner  self,  and  hay¬ 
ing  no  contact  with  all  that  concerns  humanity, 
save  as  need  compelled,  conversing  with  himself 
and  with  God, — that  so  he  should  live  above  the 
plane  of  visible  things,  and  bear  within  him  the 
signs  of  divinity,  pure  always  and  unmixed  with 
earthly  vagrant  impressions,  presenting  his  soul 
as  a  clean  mirror  to  God  and  the  heavenly 
lights.”5 

Gregory’s  apology,  delivered  in  the  remote 
church  of  Cappadocia,  might  seem  almost  to  be 
a  sermon  on  the  Epicurean  text,  “Live  con¬ 
cealed,”  which  no  doubt  he  had  heard  discussed 
from  every  point  of  view  during  his  student 
days  at  the  university  of  Athens.  Yet  if  the  se¬ 
ductive  phrase  of  Epicurus,  as  we  may  suppose, 
had  sunk  into  his  mind  so  as  never  to  he  absent 
from  his  thoughts,  it  is  no  less  true  that  the  hid¬ 
den  life  for  which  he  pined  was  divided,  as  pole 
is  separated  from  pole,  from  that,  in  some  ways 
not  ignoble,  withdrawal  of  the  Athenian  hedon¬ 
ist  into  his  garden. 

For  Epicurus  the  purpose  of  retirement  was 
primarily  the  desire  to  escape  so  far  as  possible 
the  incursions  of  society,  with  no  thought  of  fit- 


sOratio  II,  6,  7. 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


34 

ting  himself  for  citizenship  in  another  world.  To 
this  end  political  life  was  to  be  utterly  eschewed; 
for  how,  indeed,  could  the  philosopher  maintain 
his  precious  calm  of  soul,  while  suffering  the 
anxieties  of  ambition  or  the  envies  of  office?  To 
the  same  end  marriage  and  the  cares  of  a  family 
were  to  be  avoided,  though  not  so  rigorously  as 
political  entanglements.  In  one  respect  Epi¬ 
curus  was  better  than  his  creed.  It  is  notorious 
that  his  school  made  much  of  friendship,  theo¬ 
retically  and  practically ;  and  their  kindly  com¬ 
radeship,  even  their  readiness  to  sacrifice  ease 
and  possessions  for  a  friend,  threw  something 
like  a  glow  of  romance  over  their  otherwise  un¬ 
lovely  profession  of  egotism.  No  doubt  Epi¬ 
curus  could  find  logical  excuses  for  this  hu¬ 
man  weakness  in  the  mutual  protection  offered 
by  such  unions;  but  in  fact  some  inextinguish¬ 
able  nobility  of  mind  carried  him  here  quite  be¬ 
yond  the  bounds  of  his  boasted  principles.  His 
hedonism  might  leave  a  place  open  for  friend¬ 
ship  as  the  greatest  felicity  which  wisdom  pro¬ 
cures  for  the  whole  of  life,6  but  he  was  surely 
forgetting  the  claims  of  the  flesh  when  he  added 
that  it  was  of  more  account  to  know  with  whom 
we  were  to  eat  and  drink  than  what  we  were  to 


6Diog\  Laert.,  Epicurus  148. 


EPICURUS 


35 

eat  and  drink.7  And  his  rejection  of  the  Pytha¬ 
gorean  community  of  goods  (which  had  been  so 
alluring  to  Plato),  because  it  shows  some  lack 
of  confidence  in  the  generosity  of  friendship,  is 
one  of  the  finest  and,  in  the  French  sense  of  the 
word,  most  sjnrituel  of  ancient  maxims.8 

Such  was  the  social  ideal  of  Epicurus,  and  his 
rules  for  private  conduct  were  of  a  piece  with 
it — they  were  directed  as  completely,  consider¬ 
ing  the  place  of  friendship  in  his  social  scheme 
even  more  completely,  towards  the  attainment 
of  that  outer  and  inner  security  on  which  the 
continuous  state  of  pleasure  must  depend.  To 
this  end  morality  of  a  sort  is  necessary:  “It  is 
not  possible  to  live  pleasantly  without  living 
wisely  and  fairly  and  justly,  nor  to  live  wisely 
and  fairly  and  justly  without  living  pleasantly.” 
The  exordium  is  well,  and  might  lead  one  to  ex¬ 
pect  a  code  of  morals  not  altogether  unlike  the 
Platonic  eudaemonism ;  but  such  an  expectation 
is  soon  dispelled.  In  the  Epicurean  scheme  there 
is  no  conception  of  wisdom  as  a  good  to  be  sought 
for  itself,  or  of  justice  as  a  possession  which  of 
itself  brings  peace  and  happiness  to  the  owner ; 
how,  indeed,  could  such  a  conception  rind  place 
in  a  purely  materialistic  philosophy?  Not  virtue 

7Seneca,  Ep.  xix,  10. 
sDiog.  Laert.,  Epic.  11. 


36  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

for  its  own  sake  is  desirable,  nor  is  justice  con¬ 
ceivable  for  its  own  immediate  reward  in  the 
soul;  the  law  of  safety  is  the  supreme  law  of 
conduct,  and  “any  means  is  a  natural  good  by 
which  a  man  may  acquire  a  sense  of  security  from 
other  men.”  The  state  of  nature  would  be  like 
that  which  a  Thrasymachus  and  a  Callicles  up¬ 
held  at  Athens,  and  a  Hobbes  was  to  expound  in 
England.  So  far  as  justice  exists  as  an  obliga¬ 
tion,  it  is  merely  a  kind  of  compulsory  engage¬ 
ment  by  which  we  agree  not  to  deprive  others  of 
their  possessions  and  comfort  in  order  that  we 
may  enjoy  from  them  the  same  immunity.  And 
if  men  live  up  to  such  a  compact  it  is  only  because 
of  the  penalties  imposed  upon  disobedience.  “In¬ 
justice  is  not  an  evil  in  itself,”  and  he  would  be  a 
fool  who  did  not  covertly  grasp  for  himself  what 
he  could,  while  preaching  abstention  to  his  neigh¬ 
bours,  were  it  possible  to  do  this  with  impunity. 
“No  one  who  in  secret  violates  any  article  of  the 
social  compact  of  mutual  forbearance  can  be  con¬ 
fident  that  he  will  escape  detection,  even  though 
hitherto  he  has  escaped  a  thousand  times ;  for  to 

t 

the  end  of  life  he  cannot  be  sure  that  he  is  safe.”9 

9Mr.  Hicks  undertakes  to  condone  this  code  of  morality  as  being 
“just  the  position  taken  up  by  modern  international  law  and  just 
the  attitude  adopted  by  Christian  nations”  ( Stoic  and  Epicurean 
177).  He  has  a  word  of  protest  against  the  Stoics  who  presented 
the  code  “in  an  unfavourable  light,  as  does  Epictetus  when  he 


EPICURUS 


37 

And  as  it  is  with  justice  between  man  and 
man,  so  it  is  with  the  more  personal  virtues  of 
prudence  and  temperance  and  courage.  “The 
virtues  are  not  taken  for  themselves  but  for  the 
pleasure  they  bring,” — prudence  because  it  sees 
the  folly  of  striving  for  the  unattainable,  tem¬ 
perance  because  it  protects  us  against  perilous 
indulgences,  courage  because  it  enables  us  to 
overcome  pain  and  to  escape  from  empty  fears. 
At  the  best,  virtue  becomes  such  a  barter  of 
pleasure  against  pain  and  of  pleasure  against 
pleasure  as  seemed  to  Socrates,  in  gaol  and 
awaiting  death,  to  miss  all  the  nobler  chances  of 
life.  At  its  ordinary  level  virtue  is  the  caution  of 
a  soul  that  sees  no  real  distinction  between  good 
and  evil,  but  shrinks  back  from  the  bold  adven¬ 
ture  of  licence : 

“If  the  acts  that  give  pleasure  to  the  profligate 
absolved  him  from  fears,  ...  if  they  showed 
him  the  limit  of  desires,  we  should  have  nothing 
to  censure  in  such  a  man;  for  his  life  would  be 

says:  ‘Not  even  does  Epicurus  himself  declare  stealing  to  be  bad, 
but  he  admits  that  detection  is ;  and  because  it  is  impossible  to 
have  security  against  detection,  for  this  reason  he  says,  Do  not 
steal.’”  I  cannot  see  that  the  Stoics  (to  whom  might  be  added 
the  Platonists  and  Christians  and  all  the  other  moralists  save  the 
followers  of  Epicurus)  presented  the  code  in  a  more  unfavour¬ 
able  light  than  did  he  who  first  promulgated  it.  Discredit  the  be¬ 
lief  that  injustice  by  its  own  nature,  and  apart  from  any  conven¬ 
tional  penalties,  works  mischief  in  the  soul  that  harbours  it,  and 
the  position  of  Epicurus  as  interpreted  by  his  enemies  is  the  only 
logical  one  to  take — though  Epicureans  might  on  occasion  be 
illogical. 


38  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

filled  with  pleasures  flowing  in  from  every  side, 
and  would  have  no  pain  of  body  or  mind — pain 
which  is  the  evil  thing.” 


But  there  was  another  disturbance  of  human 
life  more  serious  than  that  which  came  from  the 
entanglement  of  the  individual  in  society — viz. 
the  disturbance  from  the  tyranny  and  terror  be¬ 
gotten  by  false  notions  of  the  universe.  Security 
from  the  encroachments  of  society  Epicurus 
sought,  as  we  have  seen,  in  his  ethics ;  to  attain 
like  security  from  the  world  at  large  he  looked 
to  some  formula  for  the  universal  nature  of 
things  which  should  enable  the  mind  to  pursue 
its  even  course  without  anxiety.  “For,”  as  he 
says,  “there  would  be  no  profit  in  establishing 
security  from  men  so  long  as  we  suffered  from 
forebodings  of  what  goes  on  overhead  and  under 
the  earth  and  anywhere  in  the  infinity  of  space.” 
Now  the  great  enemy  of  ataraxy,  as  Epicurus 
saw  it,  was  religion.  It  is  superstition  that  has 
filled  our  human  life  with  hideous  fears  of  the 
world  to  come  and  with  criminal  passions  in  this 
world,  and  to  free  mankind  from  these  he  will 
lay  his  axe  at  the  root  of  the  evil. 


EPICURUS 


39 

As  for  the  sense  of  terrors  to  come  it  is  hard 
for  us,  with  our  impatience  to  admit  the  force  of 
any  mythology  but  our  own,  to  comprehend  how 
large  a  part  it  played  in  the  life  of  the  ancients, 
how  it  hung  like  a  lowering  cloud  in  the  air  of 
Greece,  which  we  are  wont  to  picture  to  our¬ 
selves  as  perfectly  serene  and  untroubled  by 
those  spectral  portents  that  haunted  the  Middle 
Ages  and  our  own  age  until  a  very  recent  date. 
Yet  a  little  reading  and  a  slight  acquaintance 
with  the  human  heart  ought  to  warn  us  against 
such  an  error.10  Plato  saw  clearly  the  havoc  made 
in  the  imaginations  of  his  countrymen  by  the 
gruesome  tales  of  Hades,  and  undertook  to  lib¬ 
erate  men  by  moralizing  the  future  life  and  by 
placing  the  fate  of  the  soul  within  the  power  of 
each  man,  as  he  chose  the  upward  path  of  virtue 
or  the  downward  path  of  vice  and  misery.  But 
such  a  deliverance  required  the  belief  in  moral 
laws  which  were  not  recognized  in  the  hedonistic 
monism  of  Epicurus;  the  only  way  of  escape 
open  to  him  was  to  find  what  comfort  he  might 
in  the  conclusions  of  his  naturalistic  creed.  There 
is  no  future  life,  no  immaterial  soul  which  will 
live  and  continue  to  suffer  when  the  visible  body 
is  dissolved;  therefore  the  dread  of  what  may 

ioFor  the  sort  of  terrors  current  in  antiquity,  see,  e.g.,  Lucian’s 
Lover  of  Lies  22,  25. 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


40 

happen  after  that  final  event  is  as  idle  as  the 
shuddering  that  inflicts  our  dreams.  But  what 
of  the  horror  that  still  is  left  of  empty  darkness, 
of  annihilation,  the  thought  of  sinking  into  an 
abyss  of  nothingness?  why,  that  too  is  causeless : 
“Death  is  nought  to  us;  for  that  which  is  dis¬ 
solved  [as  the  body  and  soul  are  dissolved  into 
their  elements  at  death]  feels  not,  and  that  which 
feels  not  is  nothing  to  us.”  This  was  an  argu¬ 
ment  to  which  Epicurus  recurred  again  and 
again,11  as  if  by  repetition  of  a  charm  he  might 
benumb  the  heart  into  a  dull  acquiescence.  And 
one  recalls  the  retort  of  Plutarch,  that  such  a 
thought  does  not  remove  the  terror  of  death,  but 
rather  adds  to  its  sting  by  demonstrating  its 
cause ;  for  it  is  just  this  anticipation  of  complete 
insensibility  in  the  future  that  fills  men  with  a 
present  distress.12 

The  tyranny  of  the  future  is  but  an  extension, 

uSo  Cicero,  De  Fin.  ii,  31. 

i2Non  Posse  110'4e. — It  might  seem  that  Epicurus  could  have 
made  out  a  better  case  for  himself  by  regarding  death  as  the 
great  surcease  of  pain  and  so  as  the  fitting  consummation  of 
pleasure  as  he  conceived  pleasure.  He  might  have  quoted  the 
beautiful  line  of  Electra  in  Sophocles: 

Tous  yap  divovTas  ou%  opuj  \vTrovpibvovs — 

“Therefore  receive  me  in  thy  narrow  home, 

As  nought  to  nothing,  in  that  world  below 
To  dwell  with  thee  forever  .  . . 

For  this  I  see,  the  dead  have  rest  from  pain.” 

But  the  spirit  of  religious  resignation,  even  in  its  negative  as¬ 
pect,  cannot  be  wedded  to  Epicureanism. 


EPICURUS 


41 

so  to  speak,  of  the  monstrous  oppression  under 
which  man’s  present  life  labours  from  his  belief 
in  the  gods  and  in  Providence.  And  here  at  least 
Epicurus  was  dealing  with  an  undeniable  evil. 
Cruel  persecutions,  the  smouldering  fires  of  re¬ 
ligious  bigotry,  malignity  dressed  in  the  garb  of 
spiritual  love,  the  passion  of  egotism  stalking 
about  as  a  divine  inspiration,  the  grovellingdread 
of  supernatural  portents,  the  paralysis  of  the 
human  will, — who  can  think  of  these  and  what 
they  have  done  through  the  long  course  of  his¬ 
tory,  without  shuddering?  All  this  Lucretius, 
translating  Epicurus  into  the  language  of  poet¬ 
ry,  summed  up  in  one  fiery  picture  of  the  sacri¬ 
fice  of  Iphigenia  on  the  altar  of  Artemis,  with 
its  last  stroke  of  indignation,  terrible  and  unfor¬ 
gettable  : 

Tantum  religio  potuit  suadere  malorum. 

Here  again  Epicurus  had  been  anticipated. 
Plato  too  was  keenly  alive  to  the  sum  of  evils  for 
which  religion  must  be  held  responsible,  but  for 
release  from  this  oppression  he  could  find  a  way 
quite  barred  to  the  materialist.  It  was  his  privi¬ 
lege  to  liberate  religion  from  the  dark  over¬ 
growth  of  superstition  by  purifying  our  notion 
of  the  gods  and  by  moralizing  the  work  of  Provi¬ 
dence;  whereas  for  the  pure  hedonist  the  only 


42 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


escape  was  simply  to  deny  the  fact  of  any  inter¬ 
vention  from  above  in  the  life  of  mankind,  and 
this  Epicurus  did  absolutely  and  unflinchingly. 
It  might  have  been  expected  that  he  would  follow 
the  logical  consequences  of  such  a  creed  into  pure 
atheism ;  but  here,  for  one  reason  or  another,  he 
drew  back.  Though  the  thought  of  Providence 
was  utterly  repugnant  to  him,  and  though  he 
swept  away,  with  one  grand  gesture  of  disdain, 
the  whole  fabric  of  signs  and  portents  and  proph¬ 
ecy,  he  still  in  a  fashion  clung  to  the  existence  of 
the  gods.  It  is  easy  to  accuse  him,  and  antiquity 
did  not  fail  to  accuse  him,  of  insincerity,  as  if  he 
were  an  atheist  but,  for  fear  of  popular  resent¬ 
ment,  concealed  his  genuine  views.  Possibly  he 
may  have  been  influenced  to  some  extent  by  this 
motive,  but  his  theology  is  capable  of  another 
and  more  generous  explanation ;  he  really  had  a 
need  of  the  gods  in  his  philosophy,  and  of  pre¬ 
cisely  the  kind  of  gods  whom  he  admits,  as  may 
be  seen  from  his  arguments. 

In  the  first  place,  granted  the  existence  of 
gods,  granted  that  their  state  is  one  of  untroubled 
felicity,  granted  that  felicity  is  dependent  on  that 
withdrawal  from  cares  and  obligations  which  was 
the  ideal  of  Epicurean  hedonism,  then  it  follows 
that  the  gods  will  pass  their  time  in  unconcern 


EPICURUS 


43 

for  the  business  of  this  vastly  laborious  world  of 
ours.  “The  motion  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  their 
solstices,  eclipses,  risings  and  settings,  and  what 
goes  with  these,  all  such  things  we  must  believe 
happen  without  the  present  or  future  interven¬ 
tion  of  any  being  who  at  the  same  time  enjoys 
perfect  felicity  with  immortality.”13  Nor  will  the 
gods  suffer  themselves  to  be  affected  and  swayed 
by  the  distracted  affairs  of  mankind :  “That  which 
is  blessed  and  immortal  neither  has  any  trouble¬ 
some  business  itself  nor  brings  such  trouble  upon 
another;  it  is  exempt  from  movements  of  anger 
and  favour,  for  all  this  implies  weakness.”  There 
is  no  room  in  such  a  theology  for  a  divine  Provi¬ 
dence  of  creation  or  preservation.  The  gods,  if 
they  exist,  will  not  be  “good”  in  the  sense  which 
Plato  attached  to  this  word,  but  simply  happy 
in  the  enjoyment  of  complete  indifference  and 
security;  their  home  will  be  set  apart  in  a  Para¬ 
dise  beyond  the  shock  and  conflict  of  opposing 
forces,  where,  as  in  a  celestial  counterpart  of 
Epicurus’  own  garden,  they  will  spend  the  long 
aeons  in  pleasant  intercourse  one  with  another. 
Such  the  gods  must  be,  if  we  grant  their  exist¬ 


ence, — 

!3 Epist .  Prima  76. 


44 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


“The  gods,  who  haunt 
The  lucid  interspace  of  world  and  world, 

Where  never  creeps  a  cloud,  or  moves  a  wind, 

Nor  ever  falls  the  least  white  star  of  snow, 

Nor  ever  lowest  roll  of  thunder  moans, 

Nor  sound  of  human  sorrow  mounts  to  mar 
Their  sacred  everlasting  calm  !  and  such, 

Not  all.  so  fine,  nor  so  divine  a  calm, 

N ot  such,  nor  all  unlike  it,  man  may  gain 
Letting  his  own  life  go.” 

And  in  these  lines  from  Tennyson’s  Lucre¬ 
tius  we  see  not  only  how  Epicurus14  adapted 
Homer’s  picture  of  Olympus  for  his  home  of  the 
gods,  but  why  he  admitted  the  gods  into  a  phi¬ 
losophy  which  might  have  been  expected  to  abut 
on  pure  atheism.  After  all,  the  divine  state  was 
no  more  than  a  carrying  out  by  the  imagination 
of  that  which  Epicurus  aimed  at  in  this  troubled 
world,  but  never  could  quite  achieve.  The  maka - 
j'ios  bios ,  “the  blessed  life,”  “the  life  of  felicity,” 
is  a  phrase  often  on  his  lips,  and  he  was  not  un¬ 
willing  to  accept  from  his  pupils  terms  of  hom¬ 
age  which  fell  little  short  of  deification ;  yet  withal 
how  imperfect  was  the  security  he  could  actually 
attain  against  the  encroachments  of  society  and 

i^Tennyson’s  lines  are  taken  from  the  third  book  of  the  De  Re- 
rum  Natura,  where  Lucretius  borrows  from  the  sixth  book  of 
the  Odyssey ;  but  Epicurus,  though  he  was  not  fond  of  Homer  or 
the  other  fabricators  of  myth,  would  not  have  repudiated  this 
picture. 


EPICURUS 


4? 

the  pangs  of  disease,  and  that  last  agony  of  dis¬ 
solution,  however  bravely  he  might  argue  that 
agony  away.  He  needed  this  ideal  of  the  divine 
tranquillity  to  strengthen  his  own  heart  and  to 
put  courage  into  his  band  of  worshippers.  He, 
also,  must  have  his  religion,  his  dream  of  imitat¬ 
ing  God,  at  whatever  price  he  bought  it. 

{ 

IV 

Having  freed  man  from  the  terrors  of  super¬ 
stition  by  removing  the  gods  far  off  from  the 
actual  world,  it  remained  for  Epicurus  to  sub¬ 
stitute  some  theory  of  nature’s  course  which 
should  at  once  fill  the  place  of  Providence  and 
offer  a  secure  foundation  for  his  ethics.  To  this 
end,  being  no  inventor,  he  was  content  for  his 
physics  to  take  over  bodily,  with,  however,  one 
important  addition,  the  atomic  system  of  De¬ 
mocritus.  And  from  his  Letter  to  Herodotus  one 
can  see  the  process  by  which  his  mind  settled  upon 
this  particular  hypothesis  as  suitable  to  his  gen¬ 
eral  philosophy.  All  that  we  know  is  given  to  us 
by  the  momentary  sensations  of  the  body.  Hence 
the  world  is  corporeal,  and  the  dividing  reason 
will  cut  this  corporeal  substance  into  ever  smaller 
and  smaller  particles  until  it  reaches  the  concep- 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


46 

tion  of  ultimate  atoms  which  correspond  to  the 
atomism  of  our  sensations.  If  you  ask  why  he 
stays  the  dividing  reason  at  this  point  and  does 
not  permit  it  to  proceed  ad  infinitum he  will  re¬ 
turn  the  simple  and  sufficient  answer  that,  if  we 
do  not  pause  somewhere,  all  things  will  be  ana¬ 
lysed  into  nothingness.  But  empty  space  also  is 
necessary  for  his  system,  since  without  it  the 
atoms  would  be  crowded  together ;  there  would 
be  no  division,  but  a  solid  mass,  and  there  would 
be  no  possibility  of  that  motion  of  matter  which 
is  a  fact  of  observation.  Hence  the  universe  for 
Epicurus  is  composed  of  an  infinite  void  where¬ 
in  are  moving  an  infinite  number  of  solid  atoms. 
And  here  it  is  in  place  to  observe  that  this  con¬ 
clusion  reached  by  the  unrestrained  action  of  the 
analytic  reason  is  as  thoroughly  monistic  as  is 
the  conclusion  reached  by  the  unrestrained  ac¬ 
tion  of  the  synthetic  reason.  Plutarch  was  keen 
enough  to  note  this,  and  to  lay  it  against  the 
school :  “For  when  Epicurus  says  that  ‘the  whole 
is  infinite  and  uncreated  and  incorruptible  with¬ 
out  increase  or  diminution/  he  certainly  speaks 
of  the  universe  as  a  unity.  And  when  in  the  be¬ 
ginning  of  his  treatise  he  declares  that  ‘the  nature 
of  things  consists  of  bodies  and  the  void/  he  has 
made  an  apparent  division  where  there  is  really 


EPICURUS 


47 

only  one  nature ;  for  of  his  two  terms  one  really 
does  not  exist  at  all,  but  is  called  by  you  the  im¬ 
palpable  and  the  void  and  the  bodiless.  So  that 
for  you  the  universe  is  a  unity.”15  The  point  of 
Plutarch’s  argument  is  that  naturalism,  in  so  far 
as  it  excludes  from  its  view  anything  positive 
and  radically  different  from  matter,  is  equally 
monistic,  equally  arbitrary,  whether  it  divides 
its  material  substratum  into  innumerable  atoms, 
after  the  fashion  of  Democritus  and  Epicurus, 
or  conceives  a  continuous  substance  in  a  state  of 
everlasting  flux,  after  the  mode  of  Heraclitus 
and  Zeno. 

Upon  this  hypothesis  of  atoms  moving  in  the 
void  Epicurus  built  up  a  purely  mechanistic  ex¬ 
planation  of  all  the  phenomena  of  the  world  and 
of  life.  Omitting  the  details  of  his  exposition,  we 
may  say,  briefly,  that  by  the  mutual  shock  and 
repulsion  of  the  atoms,  which  vary  indefinitely 
in  shape  and  size,  more  or  less  durable  aggrega¬ 
tions  of  matter  are  formed  and  vortical  motions 
are  started,  out  of  which  are  produced  the  solar 
and  sidereal  systems.  Living  organisms  owe  their 
origin  to  the  same  cause,  the  soul,  or  principle  of 
life,  being  simply  a  compound  of  finer  atoms,  a 
sort  of  fiery  vapour,  enmeshed  in  the  corporeal 


Adv .  Colot en  1114a. 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


48 

structure  of  grosser  atoms  and  dissipating  when 
its  vessel  is  dissolved.  Even  the  gods  are  mater¬ 
ial  and  subject  to  decay. 

So  far  Epicurus  seems  to  have  followed  pretty 
closely  in  the  steps  of  the  naturalists  who  pre¬ 
ceded  him.  But  in  one  momentous  point  he  struck 
out  for  himself.  In  the  Democritean  theory  the 
atoms  were  supposed  to  be  moving  primarily  all 
in  one  downward  direction,  and  the  collisions  out 
of  which  the  aggregations  arose  were  supposed  to 
occur  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  the  heavier  atoms 
would  overtake  the  lighter.  Now  Epicurus  was 
sagacious  eriough  to  see  that  no  universe  like  this 
of  ours  could  arise  on  such  a  basis.  A  regular 
and  uniform  flux  of  atoms  might  create  a  con¬ 
glomeration  of  absolute  law  and  order,  but  it 
would  be  a  world  without  variety  or  variation  of 
form,  or  indeed  without  any  forms  whatsoever, 
properly  speaking.  To  escape  this  conclusion 
he  added  a  significant  modification:  the  atoms 
should  all  be  falling  downwards  by  their  own 
weight  as  in  the  Democritean  system  (though 
he  failed  to  give  any  intelligible  meaning  to  the 
word  “downwards”  in  space  of  infinite  exten¬ 
sion),  but  besides  this  primary  motion  each  in¬ 
dividual  atom  swerves  a  little  to  one  side  or  the 
other  by  some  principle  of  arbitrary  declination 


EPICURUS  49 

within  itself.  Lucretius  states  the  matter  thus : 

“This  point  of  the  subject  we  desire  you  to 
apprehend,  that  when  atoms  are  borne  straight 
downwards  through  the  void  by  their  own weights, 
at  quite  uncertain  times  and  uncertain  places  they 
push  themselves  a  little  from  their  course,  only 
just  so  much  that  you  can  call  it  a  change  of  in¬ 
clination.  If  they  were  not  wont  to  swerve  thus, 
they  would  fall  down  all,  like  drops  of  rain, 
through  the  deep  void,  and  no  clashing  could 
have  been  begotten,  nor  any  collision  produced, 
among  the  first-beginnings ;  thus  N ature  never 
would  have  produced  anything.”16 

By  this  clever  device  Epicurus  shuns  the  im¬ 
passe  of  absolute  determinism,  and  introduces 
the  possibility  at  once  of  order  and  variety — 
order  from  the  systematic  motion  of  the  atoms, 
variety  from  the  spontaneous  motion  of  each  indi¬ 
vidual  atom.  The  masses,  organic  and  inorganic, 
of  which  the  world  is  composed  are  thrown  out 
by  nature  without  design  and  in  infinite  variety. 
Those  which  happen  to  be  constructed  suitably 
and  are  fitted  to  their  environment  endure  and, 
in  the  case  of  living  creatures,  propagate  their 
kind;  while  the  rest  are  broken  up  and  perish 

i $De  Ber.  Nat.  ii,  216-224.  The  translation  is  from  John  Mas¬ 
son’s  Lucretius,  Epicurean  and  Poet.  How  far  Epicurus  was 
justified  in  assuming  that  Democritus  held  the  atoms  to  be  fall¬ 
ing  eternally  downwards  is  a  question  we  need  not  consider.  See 
Burnet’s  Greek  Philosophy  1,  96. 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


50 

amidst  the  unceasing  clash  and  conflict.  In  the 
sphere  of  organic  life,  at  least,  Epicurus  con¬ 
nected  the  law  of  survival  with  the  conception  of 
development  in  time,  and  the  fifth  book  of  Lu¬ 
cretius  presents  a  magnificent  and  really  as¬ 
tounding  picture  of  man's  progress  from  the 
primitive  state  of  savagery  to  that  of  a  complex 
civilization.17  But  for  one  omission,  Epicurus 
would  have  anticipated  in  principle  the  theory 
of  Darwinian  evolution;  if  we  may  judge  from 
Lucretius,  he  had  no  hint  of  the  gradual  trans¬ 
formation  of  one  species  into  another,  but  each 
species,  as  it  was  thrown  out  by  chance,  so  en¬ 
dured  if  it  was  fit,  or  perished  if  it  was  unfit.  The 
omission  is  large,  no  doubt;  yet  in  view  of  the 
apparent  inability  of  modern  biologists  to  come 
to  any  agreement  upon  the  law  of  variation,  per¬ 
haps  it  will  not  be  held  so  damaging  to  the  intel¬ 
ligence  of  our  ancient  philosopher  as  at  first  it 
might  appear.  And  apart  from  this,  the  Epicu¬ 
rean  doctrine  agrees  surprisingly  with  the  mod¬ 
ern  attempt  to  explain  the  nature  of  things  on  a 
purely  materialistic  and  mathematical  basis.  In 
both  the  ultimate  source  of  phenomenal  evolu¬ 
tion  is  reduced  to  the  mechanical  law  of  chance 


17M.  Joyau  ( Epicure  118)  thinks  that  the  picture  of  progress  in 
Lucretius  should  not  be  carried  back  to  Epicurus;  it  is  certainly, 
I  think,  implicit  in  the  Epicurean  physics. 


EPICURUS 


51 

and  probability,  and  endurance  is  made  to  de¬ 
pend  on  the  law  of  fitness.  Both  fail  to  explain 
how  there  can  be  a  law  of  probability  in  the  se¬ 
quences  of  chance,  and  both  equally  shirk  the 
difficulty  of  giving  any  meaning  to  the  word 
“fit”  in  a  world  not  governed  by  an  intelligence 
which  is  superior  to  mechanical  forces,  and  which 
acts  selectively  in  accordance  with  a  self -justi¬ 
fying  principle  of  rightness,  or  order. 

It  is  a  question  how  far  Epicurus’  anticipa¬ 
tion  of  the  atomic  theory  in  its  present  form  and 
of  evolution  should  be  set  down  to  mere  philo¬ 
sophical  guessing,  and  how  far  in  general  he  can 
be  regarded  as  a  precursor  of  the  modern  scien¬ 
tific  spirit.  According  to  Froude  Epicureanism 
was  “the  creed  of  the  men  of  science”  in  the  time 
of  Caesar;  Sir  Frederick  Pollock  held  it  to  be 
“a  genuine  attempt  at  a  scientific  explanation 
of  the  world” ;  for  Professor  Trezza  it  “summed 
up  in  itself  the  most  scientific  elements  of  Greek 
antiquity” ;  Renan  praised  Epicureanism  as  “the 
great  scientific  school  of  antiquity,”  and  to  Dr. 
Woltjer  “the  Epicureans,  with  respect  to  the 
laws  and  principles  of  science,  came  nearest  of 
all  the  ancients  to  the  science  of  our  own  time.” 
On  the  other  side  Mr.  Benn,  from  whom  I  bor¬ 
row  these  quotations,  regards  such  comments  as 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


52 

“absolutely  amazing”;18  he  can  find  in  Epicu¬ 
rus  no  spark  of  the  true  scientific  spirit.  Perhaps 
it  would  be  fairer  to  put  it  this  way,  that  Epi¬ 
curus  was  a  great  anticipator  of  science,  but,  like 
the  hero  of  Moliere’s  play,  malgre  lui.  In  fact 
not  the  least  paradox  of  his  logic  rich  in  surprises 
was  his  adoption  of  a  scientific,  or  semi-scientific, 
mode  of  explaining  the  world  for  the  avowed 
purpose  of  undermining  the  very  foundation  of 
what  we  understand  by  science.  It  was  the  last 
thing  he  had  at  heart  that,  having  adopted  a  the¬ 
ory  of  creation  which  eliminated  Providence 
from  the  world,  he  should  suffer  his  physics  to 
set  up  a  law  of  mechanical  determinism  in  its 
place.  Between  the  personal  tyranny  of  theology 
and  the  impersonal  despotism  of  science,  if  he 
had  to  choose,  he  would  prefer  the  former  as  the 
less  absolute  and  inhuman : 

“Destiny,  which  some  introduce  as  sovereign 
over  all  things,  he  [the  wise  man]  laughs  to  scorn, 
affirming  that  certain  things  happen  of  neces¬ 
sity,  others  by  chance,  others  through  our  own 
agency.  F or  he  sees  that  necessity  destroys  re¬ 
sponsibility  and  that  chance  or  fortune  is  incon¬ 
stant  ;  whereas  our  own  actions  are  free,  and  it 
is  to  them  that  praise  and  blame  naturally  attach, 
It  were  better,  indeed,  to  accept  the  legends  of 


i^The  Greek  Philosophers 2  367. 


EPICURUS 


53 

the  gods  than  to  bow  beneath  that  yoke  of  des¬ 
tiny  which  the  natural  philosophershave  imposed. 
The  one  holds  out  some  faint  hope  that  we  may 
escape  by  honouring  the  gods,  while  the  neces¬ 
sity  of  the  philosophers  [of  science]  is  deaf  to 
all  supplications.”19 

It  was  strictly  in  harmony  with  this  hostile 
attitude  towards  the  postulates  of  science  that 
Epicurus  denied  the  possibility  of  formulating 
a  single  and  final  explanation  of  any  phenome¬ 
non  of  nature.  Only  in  the  general  law  of  atoms 
and  the  void,  upon  which  his  whole  philosophy 
rested,  did  he  admit  any  exception  to  this  rule ; 
in  all  other  cases,  dealing  with  particular  phe¬ 
nomena,  we  are  simply  to  accept  whatever  the¬ 
ory  may  suit  the  conditions  of  our  life  and  con¬ 
firm  our  tranquillity,  remembering  always  that 
the  theory  accepted  does  not  exclude  an  infinity 
of  others  equally  possible.  So  far  his  interest  in 
investigation  would  go,  and  no  further;  for  the 
pure  inquisitiveness  of  reason,  here  as  every¬ 
where,  he  expressed  unmitigated  contempt.20 

From  any  point  of  view  it  appears  that  Epi¬ 
curus  shaped  his  system  of  physics,  not  in  the 
interest  of  science,  but  as  an  aid  to  his  ethical 

19 Epist .  Tertia  133  (Hicks’s  translation). — For  a  similar  atti¬ 
tude  of  a  modern  Epicurean,  Samuel  Butler  of  Erewhon,  towards 
science  and  religion,  see  Shelburne  Essays  XI,  198. 

20 Epist.  Secunda  87,  93,  97,  104. 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


54 

purpose ;  he  was  seeking  here,  as  in  his  theology 
(which  indeed  to  the  Hellenist  is  a  branch  of 
physics) ,  for  such  a  liberation  from  the  inroads 
of  the  outer  world  as  would  enable  him  to  attain 
the  equanimity,  the  ataraxy,  which  seemed  to 
him  the  only  secure  ground  of  pleasure.  Hence 
his  famous  declination,  or  arbitrary  swerving, 
of  the  atoms  performed  a  double  function:  on 
the  one  hand  it  broke  the  rigidity  of  what  other¬ 
wise  would  have  congealed  into  a  system  of  ab¬ 
solute  determinism,  and  on  the  other  hand  it 
opened  the  door  to  a  freedom  of  will  which  places 
the  life  of  pleasure  within  a  man’s  own  choice. 
The  nexus  between  atomic  declination  and  hu¬ 
man  freedom  is  not  clear.21  They  both,  no  doubt, 
imply  spontaneity;  but  in  the  one  case  a  spon¬ 
taneity  of  pure  chance,  and  in  the  other  case  a 
spontaneity  of  conscious  purpose,  and  these  two 
are  more  than  different  in  kind,  they  are  intrin¬ 
sically  incompatible  from  the  Epicurean  point 
of  view.  A  dualist  may  solve  this  difficulty  by 

2iSee  Masson,  Journal  of  Philology  XII,  1883,  pp.  127-135. — In 
the  second  of  his  Boyle  Lectures  the  great  Bentley  commented 
thus  on  the  Epicurean  attempt  to  deduce  free  will  from  a  me¬ 
chanical  deviation  of  the  atoms:  “’Tis  as  if  one  should  say  that 
a  bowl  equally  poised,  and  thrown  upon  a  plain  and  smooth 
bowling-green,  will  run  necessarily  and  fatally  in  a  direct  mo¬ 
tion;  but  if  it  be  made  with  a  bias,  that  may  decline  it  a  little 
from  a  straight  line,  it  may  acquire  by  that  motion  a  liberty  of 
will,  and  so  run  spontaneously  to  the  jack.”  (Quoted  in  Jebb’s 
Life  of  Bentley,  p.  31.) 


EPICURUS 


55 

attributing  mechanical  chance  to  the  material 
world  and  conscious  purpose  to  the  realm  of 
spirit ;  but  no  such  division  was  legitimately  open 
to  a  consistent  monist.  Apparently  Epicurus 
undertook  to  bully  the  logic  of  the  situation  by 
a  transparent  device.  His  primary  atoms  are 
described,  as  a  true  materialist  should  describe 
them,  in  purely  quantitative  terms;  they  have 
size  and  form,  but  no  qualities,  no  sensation, 
nothing  inducive  of  sensation.  Then,  suddenly, 
by  the  mere  fact  of  aggregation,they  have  become 
endowed  with  qualities  and  with  sensation,  and 
in  the  finer  atoms  which  constitute  the  soul  me¬ 
chanical  chance  has  become  converted  into  con¬ 
scious  free  will.  The  transition  is  arbitrary,  in¬ 
comprehensible,  subversive  of  the  principles  of 
the  Epicurean  physics,  as  Plutarch  was  not  slow 
to  point  out  ;22  but,  then,  logic  is  the  last  strong¬ 
hold  of  tyranny,  and  Epicurus  was  ready  to  pur¬ 
chase  liberty  at  the  price  of  any  self-contradic¬ 
tion. 


y 

This,  indeed,  is  the  staggering  fact,  that  a  phil¬ 
osophical  theory,  which  in  the  name  of  rea¬ 
son  begins  with  a  repudiation  of  the  dualistic 


22 Adv.  Coloten  1111b,  1118e. 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


56 

paradox  in  the  nature  of  things,  should  end  in  a 
set  of  self-imposed  and  utterly  unreasonable 
paradoxes.  Here  is  a  philosopher  who  puts  his 
faith  solely  and  unconditionally  in  the  senses, 
yet  for  the  basis  of  his  system  goes  beyond  the 
senses  to  an  hypothesis  of  invisible  atoms  and 
the  void;  who  accepts  all  sensations  as  true,  yet 
holds  part  of  the  qualities  given  to  us  by  sensa¬ 
tion  to  be  purely  relative ;  who  despises  the  forms 
and  rules  of  logic,  yet  argues  on  from  syllogism 
to  syllogism ;  who  recognizes  only  physical  causes 
and  laws,  and  rejects  all  arbitrary  and  fanciful 
effects,  yet  in  his  own  doctrine  of  atomic  deflec¬ 
tion  and  human  free  will  makes  a  law  of  unac¬ 
countable  spontaneity ;  who  reduces  all  pleasure 
and  pain  to  corporeal  feelings,  yet  looks  to  the 
soul  as  the  seat  of  the  higher  satisfaction ;  who 
sees  no  motive  but  self-seeking  egotism,  yet  in 
practice  followed  the  precepts  of  humanity,  jus¬ 
tice,  disinterested  friendship,  even  of  self-sacri¬ 
fice.23 

All  this  is  undeniable;  but  it  is  equally  true 
that  the  conclusions  of  Epicurus  are  no  more 
contradictory  than  are  those  of  Stoicism  and 
Neoplatonism,  or,  indeed,  of  any  monistic  meth¬ 
od.  And,  after  all,  it  may  be  said  that  the  physics 


23Zeller,  Geschichte 2  IV,  422. 


EPICURUS 


57 

and  metaphysics  of  Epicurus  are  only  the  outer 
fortifications  thrown  up,  with  whatever  success, 
to  protect  the  inner  citadel  of  his  philosophy.  In 
taking  pleasure  as  his  starting  point  and  end, 
he  chose  what  all  men  do  naturally  aim  at  and 
desire — pleasure,  or  something  corresponding 
to  it  in  the  spirit.  That  is  the  simple  fact  to  which 
we  must  hold  fast  through  all  the  shifts  of  rea¬ 
son  ;  and  those  subtle  logicians  who  have  tried  to 
escape  this  law  of  nature  by  discriminating  be¬ 
tween  pleasure  itself  as  the  end  of  action  and  the 
object  or  act  which  results  in  pleasure  have  mere¬ 
ly  quibbled  over  a  word.  By  grasping  so  firmly 
this  fundamental  truth — though  it  be  but  half 
the  truth — of  human  life,  Epicurus  gave  his  name 
to  one  of  the  broad  and  enduring  philosophies  of 
life ;  and  men  of  old  and  men  of  today  call  them¬ 
selves  Epicureans  who  have  never  read  a  line  of 
the  master’s  writings.  That,  in  fact,  is  character¬ 
istic  of  his  influence.  No  founder  of  a  sect  was 
ever  more  revered  by  his  followers,  and  of  all 
the  schools  of  Greece  his  was  the  only  one  which, 
theoretically,  underwent  no  change;  although 
in  practice  no  men  who  call  themselves  by  the 
same  name  have  so  differed  in  their  lives,  as  the 
pleasure  of  their  desires  shifts  from  colour  to 
colour. 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


58 

The  great  multitude,  indeed,  of  those  who  have 
called  themselves,  or  whom  we  call,  Epicureans 
have  been  anything  but  scholars  or  sages  or,  in 
any  proper  sense  of  the  word,  philosophers.  This 
is  so  true  that  it  was  common  among  the  early 
Christians,  while  making  many  concessions  to 
the  other  pagan  sects,  to  deny  utterly  to  Epi¬ 
cureanism  the  name  of  philosophy ;  among  the 
Jews  the  Greek  name  of  the  master  of  the  Gar¬ 
den  was  used  to  denote  a  heretic  or  unbeliever 
of  any  sort.  “Be  diligent,”  said  Rabbi  Lazar, 
“to  learn  Thorah,  wherewith  thou  mayest  make 
answer  to  Epicurus.”24  What  the  creed  of  pleas¬ 
ure  too  often  means  to  the  world  Cicero  has  told 
in  his  oration  against  Piso,  the  despoiler  of  Mace¬ 
donia.  In  his  disorderly  youth  this  Piso  met  with 
a  Greek  philosopher  who  undertook  to  expound 
to  him  the  doctrines  of  the  Garden.  But  the  teach¬ 
er  did  not  get  far.  “No  doubt  you  have  heard  it 
said  that  the  Epicureans  measure  all  things  de¬ 
sirable  to  men  by  pleasure” — it  was  enough;  like 
a  stallion  neighing  in  excitement  the  youth  leapt 
at  the  words,  delighted  to  find  an  authority  for 
lust  where  he  had  expected  a  sermon  on  virtue. 
The  Greek  began  to  distinguish  and  divide  and 
explain;  but  “No,”  cried  the  young  man,  “stop 


24 Sayings  of  the  Jewish  Fathers  40,  edited  by  Charles  Taylor. 


EPICURUS 


59 

there,  I  subscribe,  your  Epicurus  is  a  wonderful 
fellow!”  And  the  Professor,  with  bis  charming 
Greek  manners,  was  too  polite  to  insist  against 
the  will  of  a  Roman  senator.25 

Pleasure  is  a  power  that  needs  no  encomium 
to  inflame  the  desires  and  to  fascinate  the  under¬ 
standing,  and  a  philosophy  which  throws  such  a 
word  about  broadcast,  however  it  may  modify 
and  protest,  cannot  be  absolved  from  a  terrible 
responsibility.  It  will  be  said  that  such  a  charge 
may  be  fair  enough  against  the  Cyrenaics,  who 
were  rather  voluptuaries  than  philosophers,  but 
is  a  grave  injustice  when  applied  to  the  true 
Epicurean  brand  of  hedonism.  And,  no  doubt, 
there  is  some  force  in  this  excuse.  As  for  Epi¬ 
curus  himself  we  have  seen  that  the  craving  for 
security  prevailed  so  strongly  with  him  over  the 
grasping  at  positive  indulgence  in  the  com¬ 
pound  which  he  called  by  the  name  of  ataraxy, 
that  the  body  in  the  end  is  almost  refined  out  of 
his  philosophy.  By  whatever  devices  of  logic  and 
ambiguities  of  definition,  however  he  came  by 
the  possession,  one  cannot  but  feel  that  in  his 
heart  he  did  hold  a  treasure  of  wisdom.  He  was 
tried  by  bereavement  and  in  his  later  years  by 

25 jn  Pisonem  28. — Lucian  (The  Parasite  11)  shows  that  the  pro¬ 
fessional  toady  has  laid  hold  of  the  telos  of  Epicureanism  better 
than  Epicurus  himself. 


6o 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


painful  disease,  yet  through  it  all  he  seems  to 
have  remained  lord  of  himself  and  of  that  tran¬ 
quillity  of  soul  which  he  preached  as  the  genuine 
fountain  of  pleasure.  To  one  of  his  friends,  just 
before  his  death,  he  sent  a  letter  of  which  this 
fragment  is  preserved: 

“And  now  as  I  am  passing  this  last  and  blessed 
day  of  my  life  I  write  to  you.  Strangury  has  laid 
hold  of  me,  and  wracking  torments  beyond  which 
suffering  cannot  go ;  but  over  against  all  this  I 
set  my  joy  of  soul  in  the  memory  of  our  thoughts 
and  words  together  in  the  past.  Do  you  care  for 
the  children  of  Metrodorus,  in  a  manner  worthy 
of  your  devotion  to  me  and  to  philosophy.” 

Strange  termination,  you  will  say,  to  a  creed 
which  began  by  denying  reality  to  everything 
except  the  immediate  sensations  of  the  body;  yet 
there  it  is.  Were  it  not  for  the  flaunting  paradox 
of  the  phrase,  one  would  declare  that  of  all  Epi¬ 
cureans  he  who  gave  them  their  name  was  the 
least  an  Epicurean. 

And  the  world  has  seen  many  other  noble 
souls  who  have  found  a  measure  of  comfort  and 
strength  and  grace  and  something  very  like  spir¬ 
itual  elevation  in  the  more  refined  philosophy  of 
hedonism.  Transplanted  to  Rome,  such  a  creed 
could  inspire  Lucretius  with  a  passionate  long¬ 
ing  to  liberate  mankind  from  the  slavery  of  im- 


EPICURUS 


61 


aginary  fears,  and  with  an  agony  of  adoration, 
one  might  say,  for  that  Nature  by  whose  will  the 
atoms  were  maintained  in  their  everlasting  ma¬ 
jestic  dance,  and  who  offered  to  the  souls  of  men 
one  fleeting  glimpse  of  her  tremendous  face  and 
then  dropped  upon  them  the  thick  curtain  of 
annihilation,  kindly  in  what  she  granted,  kind¬ 
lier  in  what  she  withheld.  The  same  creed  could 
carry  a  sensitive  lover  of  the  earth’s  bounties  like 
Atticus  unscathed  through  the  brutalities  of  the 
Civil  Wars,  a  man  of  infinite  resourcefulness  in 
the  service  of  his  friends  by  virtue  of  his  com¬ 
plete  abstention  from  the  hazard  of  public  af¬ 
fairs. 

In  England  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  tra¬ 
dition  could  still  rouse  a  Pater  to  break  the  calm 
of  Victorian  propriety  for  the  valorous  adven¬ 
ture  of  an  artistic  hedonism  distilled  out  of  the 

i 

more  positive  doctrines  of  Aristippus  and  the 
stricter  discipline  of  Epicurus.  “Every  moment 
some  form  grows  perfect  in  hand  or  face ;  some 
tone  on  the  hills  or  the  sea  is  choicer  than  the 
rest ;  some  mood  of  passion  or  insight  or  intel¬ 
lectual  excitement  is  irresistibly  real  and  attrac¬ 
tive  to  us — for  that  moment  only.  Not  the  fruit 
of  experience,  but  experience  itself,  is  the  end.” 
And  so  the  pursuit  of  philosophy  shall  be  no 


62 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


cold  consultation  of  books  or  dull  hoarding  of 
wisdom;  for,  with  a  “sense  of  the  splendour  of 
our  experience  and  of  its  awful  brevity,  gath¬ 
ering  all  we  are  into  one  desperate  effort  to  see 
and  touch,  we  shall  hardly  have  time  to  make 
theories  about  the  things  we  see  and  touch.”20 
Under  a  new  name  the  old  philosophy  of  the 
Garden  could  teach  Mill,  as  a  utilitarian,  to  look 
for  private  happiness  in  devotion  to  the  well¬ 
being  of  others,  and,  as  a  hedonist,  to  grade  the 


26Ancient  Epicureanism  covers  every  form  of  hedonism  except 
the  artistic.  I  can  find  nothing  in  antiquity  quite  corresponding 
to  the  philosophy  developed  by  Pater  on  the  principles  of  Aris¬ 
tippus,  or  to  the  aesthetic  of  Croce,  nothing  corresponding  to  the 
theory  of  art  for  art’s  sake  of  modern  times.  As  for  Epicurus 
himself,  he  was  so  far  from  conceiving  an  artistic  hedonism 
that  he  virtually  rejected  aesthetics  altogether  from  his  doctrine. 
He  will  admit  a  kind  of  pleasure  in  music,  but  will  not  take  it 
seriously  and  forbids  any  discussion  of  it  as  an  art.  He  excludes 
the  study  of  rhetoric  and  commands  his  pupils  to  have  nothing 
to  do  with  rrjv  i\evd£piov  Ka\ov/jLtvrjv  TroubeLav.  For  Homer  he  has 
only  abuse.  Sextus  Empiricus  was  referring  mainly  to  the  Epi¬ 
curean  views  when  he  said  ( Adv .  Math.  I,  298)  that,  so  far  as  it 
lies  with  the  poets,  their  art  is  not  only  useless  to  life  but  actually 
injurious;  for  poetry  is  a  stronghold,  or  confirmation,  of  men’s 
passions.  (Aristippus  was  probably  more  liberal;  see  preceding 
chapter,  p.  6).  The  breakdown  of  ancient  hedonism  is  owing 
to  the  fact  that  it  fails  to  give  the  desired  security  from  the 
chances  of  life  on  which  its  happiness  depends.  Just  this  security 
the  modern  theory  of  aesthetic  hedonism  proposes  to  offer  by 
seeking  the  source  of  pleasure  in  an  art  entirely  dissevered  from 
the  business  of  life.  But  the  result  is  an  art  denuded  of  solid  con¬ 
tent  and  a  life  without  meaning.  Epicurus  was  nearer  to  the 
truth  than  is  Pater  or  Croce.  For  a  profound  criticism  of  the 
source  of  the  modern  theories  in  Hegel’s  aesthetic  I  may  refer 
to  the  work  of  my  friend  Prosser  Hall  Frye,  Romance  and 
Tragedy. 


EPICURUS  63 

kinds  of  pleasure  by  a  scale  of  spiritual  values 
which  theoretically  he  denied. 

Epicurus  can  number  among  his  followers  a 
sufficient  line  of  artists  and  scientists,  great  sol¬ 
diers  and  statesmen,  sages  and  prophets ;  and  if 
a  philosophy  is  to  be  rated  by  its  finest  fruit,  he¬ 
donism  may  hold  up  its  head  among  the  schools. 
But  even  so,  taken  at  its  highest,  as  a  true  phi¬ 
losophy  and  not  as  a  mere  incentive  to  the  in¬ 
stinctive  lusts  of  the  flesh,  Epicureanism  still 
suffers  a  grim  defeat  by  any  genuine  pragmatic 
test.  At  the  best  it  was  founded  on  a  half-truth. 
Its  error  is  deep-rooted  in  the  initial  assumption 
of  a  materialistic  monism,  and  that  fault  it  could 
never  entirely  correct,  though  in  practice  it  elud¬ 
ed  by  an  inconsistency  the  grosser  consequences 
of  its  origin.  Certainly,  the  heart  of  man  craves 
happiness  as  its  inalienable  right ;  but  the  hedone 
which  Epicurus  could  offer  as  the  reward  of  wis¬ 
dom,  the  pleasure  whose  limit  is  determined  by 
the  elimination,  or  even  by  the  mental  conquest, 
of  all  physical  pain,  is  a  poor  possession  in  com¬ 
parison  with  the  eudaimonia  which  Socrates  and 
Plato  found  in  the  soul  that  has  raised  its  eyes 
to  the  everlasting  beauty  of  the  Ideal  world ;  or 
beside  that  “joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost”  which  leaps 
out  of  the  language  of  St.  Paul.  No  doubt  the 


64  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

human  heart  needs  to  be  liberated  from  the  vicis¬ 
situdes  of  fortune  and  the  visions  of  a  disordered 
imagination  and  the  terror  of  death ;  but  the  se¬ 
curity  of  the  Epicurean  is  a  pale  substitute  for 
the  fair  and  great  hope  of  the  Platonist,  or  for 
the  assurance  of  the  Christian:  “Ye  shall  know 
the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make  you  free.”27 

It  was  the  final  charge  of  Plutarch  against  the 
philosophy  of  hedonism  that  a  life  of  pleasure 
was  impossible  under  the  rule  of  Epicurus ;  and 
Professor  Martha  closes  his  penetrating  and 
generous  study  of  Lucretius  with  the  judicial 
sentence,  that  “the  true  refutation  of  the  doctrine 
which  preaches  pleasure  is  the  sadness  of  its 
greatest  interpreter.”  So  much  must  be  weighed 
against  any  theory  of  the  world  which  ignorant¬ 
ly  or  wantonly  shuts  its  eyes  to  the  reality  of 

“Things  more  sublime  than  mortal  happiness.”28 

27The  Christian  was  not  afraid  of  the  Epicurean  watchword.  So 
Basil  (l  etter  ccxlv)  :  MyjSev  irporLporepov  rrjs  aXrjOela s  Kal  tt)s  oiKelas 
eavT&p  acrcpaXeias  Ti.dep.evoi.  See  The  Religion  of  Plato  301. 

28William  Chamberlayne,  Pharonnida  III,  ii,  52. 


CHAPTER  III 


CYNICS  AND  STOICS 

I 

The  long  line  of  Cynics  and  Stoics,  in  ^ome 
respects  the  most  important  and  significant  of 
the  Hellenistic  sects,  begins  with  Antisthenes, 
an  Athenian,  born  about  the  year  440  b.c.  At 
one  time  he  was  a  pupil  of  Gorgias,  and  to  the 
end  his  doctrine  retained  a  strong  sophistic  bias ; 
but  later  in  his  career  he  succumbed,  like  his  an¬ 
tagonist  Aristippus,  to  the  Socratic  spell.  It  is 
said  that,  living  in  Piraeus,  he  used  to  walk  daily 
the  forty  furlongs  up  to  the  City  to  hear  Soc¬ 
rates,  and  we  know  from  Plato  that  he  became 
intimate  enough  with  the  master  to  form  one  of 
the  faithful  group  who  stayed  with  him  through 
the  last  day  in  gaol.  At  some  date,  probably  after 
the  death  of  Socrates,  he  set  up  his  own  school 
in  the  gymnasium  Cynosarges.  Hence,  presum¬ 
ably,  the  name  Cynic  which  attached  to  his  fol¬ 
lowers,  although  popular  etymology  delight- 

65 


66 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


ed  to  connect  it  with  the  word  for  dog  ( kyon ) . 

In  one  respect  the  father  of  the  Cynics  agreed 
with  his  fellow-pupil  from  Cyrene:  they  both, 
as  imperfect  Socratics,  rejected  all  the  spiritual 
side  of  Socrates’  teaching.  Both  were  material¬ 
ists  and  sensationalists,  in  whom  the  master’s 
deep  concern  with  the  human  soul  and  with  its 
eternal  rights  and  responsibilities  struck  no 
answering  chord.  Antisthenes,  apparently,  was 
what  Plato  would  call  a  semi.- atheist :  some  kind 
of  God  he  accepted  as  a  power  more  or  less  iden¬ 
tical  with  N ature ;  but  it  was  a  God  remote  from 
mankind,  while  the  popular  worship,  to  which 
Socrates  conformed,  with  a  shade,  it  may  be,  of 
ironical  reservation,  was  to  the  Cynic  a  matter 
of  jest  and  contempt.  So  also  he  repudiated 
vehemently  the  Ideal  philosophy  which  Plato 
developed  from  the  spiritual  affirmations  of 
Socrates.  “O  Plato,”  he  is  said  to  have  exclaimed, 
“a  horse  I  see,  horseness  I  do  not  see.”  He  was 
the  first  of  the  avowed  nominalists,  or  concep- 
tualists,  for  whom  Ideas  have  no  objective  real¬ 
ity,  but  are  only  names  or  conceptions  in  the 
mind.  And  he  was  honest  enough  to  carry  this 
nominalism  out  to  its  logical  conclusion.  If  our 
Ideas  are  pure  conceptions  of  the  mind,  evoca¬ 
tions  only  of  our  own  thinking  power,  with  no 


CYNICS  AND  STOICS 


67 

corresponding  reality  outside  of  the  mind  to 
which  they  should  conform,  and  by  which  they 
should  be  controlled,  then  all  Ideas  are  equally 
real  and  equally  justifiable,  and  there  is  no  dis¬ 
tinction  between  true  and  false,  no  place  for  con¬ 
tradiction.  “Whatever  we  say  is  true:  for  if  we 
say,  we  say  something;  and  if  we  say  something, 
we  say  that  which  is ;  and  if  we  say  that  which  is, 
we  say  the  truth.”  Here  was  room  for  a  pretty 
feud,  the  memory  of  which  remained  as  a  source 
of  amusement  to  the  scandal-mongers  of  a  late 
generation.1  Antisthenes  satirized  Plato  in  a 
scurrilous  book ;  and  though  Plato  mentions  his 
antagonist  only  once,  and  then  merely  to  include 
him  among  those  who  were  present  at  the  death 
of  Socrates,  yet  the  later  dialogues  are  much 
concerned  with  refuting  this  fundamental  here¬ 
sy,  which  makes  a  mockery  of  the  philosophic 
quest  of  truth. 

And  if  Antisthenes  was  at  one  with  Aristip¬ 
pus  in  rejecting  the  whole  spiritual  half  of  the 
Socratic  doctrine,  we  can  see,  I  think,  how  he 
was  still  drawn  to  Socrates  by  the  same  traits 
which  fascinated  the  young  visitor  from  Gyrene. 
He  too  was  looking  for  freedom  and  security, 
freedom  from  inner  perturbations,  and  secur- 


iSee  e.g.,  Athenaeus  v,  63;  xi,  115. 


68 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


ity  from  a  world  that  seemed  indifferent,  if  not 
hostile,  to  man’s  happiness ;  and  in  the  autarheia 
of  Socrates  he  saw  these  qualities  embodied  in  a 
manner  that  piqued  his  curiosity  and  dominated 
his  will. 

So  far  Antisthenes  and  Aristippus,  as  natu¬ 
ralistic  monists,  were  in  harmony,  but  at  this 
point  their  paths  diverged.  To  the  Cyrenaic  it 
appeared  that  liberty  and  security  might  be  ob¬ 
tained,  at  little  cost,  by  a  prudent  calculation  in 
the  pursuit  of  pleasure,  through  the  hedonism, 
that  is  to  say,  which  formed  a  part  undoubtedly, 
but  not  the  whole,  of  the  Socratic  teaching.  To 
the  Cynic,  with  his  different  temper  and  mind, 
such  a  creed  appeared  not  exactly  subordinate 
to  a  higher  truth,  as  it  did  to  Plato,  but  intrinsi¬ 
cally  dangerous  and  subversive  of  life.  He  saw 
that  the  boasted  Habeo ,  non  habeor  of  Aristip¬ 
pus  was  no  more  than  the  gilding  on  the  chains 
of  servitude.  He  felt  too  clearly  the  seductions 
and  enervation  of  pleasure,  the  pitfalls  it  dug 
for  unwary  feet,  and  turned  from  it  as  from  an 
implacable  foe.  To  such  an  extreme  he  went  in 
the  expression  of  this  antipathy  that  he  used  to 
say,  “Rather  let  me  be  mad  than  feel  pleasure”;2 
by  which  he  meant,  apparently,  not  that  he  was 

2Diog.  Laert.  VI,  3:  M avelrjv  /maWov  t)  rjcdeLrjv. 


CYNICS  AND  STOICS 


69 

opposed  to  the  mere  gratification  of  the  senses, 
for  in  some  respects  he  was  ready  enough  to  in¬ 
dulge  the  flesh,3  but  that  he  refused  to  distin¬ 
guish  between  pleasure  and  pleasure  in  such  a 
way  as  to  suffer  his  conduct  to  be  governed  by 
the  need  of  choice.  Virtue  ( arete ),  not  the  free 
dalliance  with  pleasure,  was  the  parent  of  self- 
sufficiency  ;  that  should  be  the  goal  of  his  striv¬ 
ing,  and  all  things  between  virtue  and  vice  should 
be  disregarded  as  indifferent,  except  as  they 
contributed  to  this  or  that  end.  If  anyone  aspect 
of  the  Socratic  doctrine  is  to  be  isolated  from 
the  rest,  this  at  least  is  a  more  orthodox  code 
than  the  Cyrenaic  or  the  Epicurean  hedonism. 

But  for  Antisthenes,  who  discarded  the  pur¬ 
suit  of  pleasure  as  a  snare,  and  to  whom  the  Ideal 
happiness  of  Plato  could  have  no  meaning,  vir¬ 
tue  was  necessarily  left  without  a  positive  mo¬ 
tive  or  outcome,  and  took  the  form  of  a  mere 
hardening  of  one’s  resolve  against  any  accom¬ 
modation  with  the  world.  It  could  go  no  further 
than  that  quality  of  steady  endurance  ( karteria ) 
on  which  alone  the  indomitable  valour  of  Socra¬ 
tes  might  seem  to  depend.  Or  if  virtue  assumed 
a  positive  character  at  all,  it  would  be  by  inten¬ 
sifying  passive  endurance  into  a  deliberate  wel- 

3E.g.  ibid.:  Xprj  toicujtcus  Tr\Tj<nd^eLv  yvvaiQv  a?  x&PLV  etffovrai. 


7o  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

come  of  the  bracing  hardships  of  life.  That,  I 
think,  is  the  significance  of  the  Cynic  identifica¬ 
tion  of  virtue  with  ponos,  a  word  not  easy  to  de¬ 
fine.  It  means  either  “labour”  or  “pain,”  as  the 
case  may  be,  or  both  together  with  shifting  em¬ 
phasis  on  one  or  the  other  element  of  the  com¬ 
pound;  as  “labour”  it  signified  for  the  Cynic 
that  philosophy  was  a  matter  of  life  and  action, 
not  of  words  or  syllogisms  or  learning ;  as  “pain” 
it  would  inculcate  an  indifference  to  pleasure 
extending  even  to  a  preference  for  discomfort 
and  privation.  The  accepted  morality  of  the 
world  would  be  nothing  more  than  an  imposi¬ 
tion  of  words,  an  unauthorized  convention  (no- 
mos) ,  in  opposition  to  which  he  would  set  up 
the  law  of  nature  ( physis ) ,  or  the  consideration 
of  things  as  they  are  on  the  lowest  possible  basis 
of  estimation;  all  that  creates  the  comfort  and 
ease  and  grace  of  life,  and  at  the  same  time 
softens  the  possessor  so  as  to  leave  him  a  prey 
to  the  hazards  of  fortune,  he  would  strip  off  as 
superfluous.  The  philosopher  should  be  abso¬ 
lutely  self-sufficient  in  his  apathy,  or  as  near¬ 
ly  self-sufficient  as  the  necessities  of  physical 
existence  permit — liberated  from  desires  and 
fears,  superior  to  want,  inured  to  hardship,  con¬ 
temptuous  of  opinion,  licensed  to  do  and  to  say 


CYNICS  AND  STOICS 


7i 

whatever  occurred  to  him,  a  model  for  other  men. 

Only  in  one  point  did  Antisthenes  yield  to 
the  softer  emotions.  Somehow  he  found  it  pos¬ 
sible  to  combine  some  sort  of  sympathy  with  his 
apathy,  and  to  preach  some  sort  of  universal 
citizenship  along  with  his  exaggerated  individ¬ 
ualism  ;  he  was  the  first,  unless  Socrates  preced¬ 
ed  him,  to  call  himself  a  cosmopolite.  But  of  this 
strange  paradox  we  shall  have  more  to  say  when 
it  appears  in  the  Stoicism  of  Epictetus. 

Such  was  the  life  and  lesson  of  Antisthenes. 
As  our  gossiping  historian  puts  it:  “From  Soc¬ 
rates  he  took  the  quality  of  endurance  and  apa¬ 
thy,  and  so  founded  the  school  of  Cynicism ;  and 
that  ponos  is  the  chief  good  he  proved  by  the  in¬ 
stance  of  the  great  Heracles  and  of  Cyrus,  draw¬ 
ing  one  example  from  the  Greeks  and  the  other 
from  the  barbarians.”  Antisthenes  is  a  shadowy 
and  somewhat  ambiguous  figure;  for  the  later 
generations  his  fame  was  quite  swallowed  up  by 
that  of  Diogenes,  or  of  the  legendary  saint  of 
philosophy  into  whom  the  real  Diogenes  was 
soon  converted. 


II 

Thelineof  Cynics  runs  from  Antisthenes  through 
Diogenes  of  Sinope,  Crates,  Bionof  Borysthenes, 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


72 

Teles,  and  spreads  out  into  a  body  of  genuine 
ascetics  and  cunning  impostors,  who  wore  the 
folded  cloak  and  imitated  the  surly  manners  of 
their  leaders  for  the  edification  of  society  or  the 
gratification  of  their  own  vanity  and  greed. 
Cynicism  remained  to  the  end  a  mode  of  life 
rather  than  a  system  of  thought.  Meanwhile  the 
current  was  diverted  in  part  to  an  allied,  though 
in  some  respects  very  different  school. 

Zeno,  probably  a  Phoenician  by  race,  was  bom 
in  the  Cyprian  town  of  Citium  about  the  year 
-  336  b.c.  When  still  a  young  man  he  came  to 
Athens,  and  there,  stirred  by  the  reading  of 
Xenophon’s  Memorabilia  and  Plato’s  Apology, 
was  drawn  to  the  Socratic  philosophy  and  placed 
himself  under  the  tutelage  of  the  cynic  Crates, 
though  he  studied  also  with  the  masters  of  the 
Megarian  and  Academic  sects.  In  time  he  found¬ 
ed  his  own  school,  delivering  his  lectures  in  the 
StoaPoikile,  a  colonnade  near  the  Agora  adorned 
with  paintings,  from  which  his  followers  came  to 
^be  called  Stoics,  or  men  of  the  Porch.  He  died 
in  264,  having  taught  publicly  for  some  forty 
years,  and  having  won  the  esteem  of  the  Athe¬ 
nians  for  his  integrity  of  character  and  frugal¬ 
ity  of  life. 

The  affiliation  of  Zeno’s  doctrine  may  be  gath- 


CYNICS  AND  STOICS 


73 

ered  by  reading  together  two  passages  from  an¬ 
tiquity;  one  from  the  historian  of  Laerte,  who 
says  that  Antisthenes  laid  the  foundation  of  the 
city  by  anticipating  the  apathy  of  Diogenes,  the 
continence  of  Crates,  and  the  endurance  of  Zeno ; 
the  other  from  a  late  Stoic  who  declares  that  by 
the  counsel  of  God  Socrates  took  for  his  province 
the  examination  of  souls,  and  Diogenes  the  art 
of  rebuking  in  royal  fashion,  whereas  Zeno  made 
philosophy  didactic  and  dogmatic.4  As  Epicu¬ 
rus,  following  Aristippus,  laid  hold  of  the  So- 
cratic  hedonism  and  developed  this  into  a  sys¬ 
tematic  philosophy,  so  Zeno  took  the  Socratic 
virtue  of  endurance  and  self-sufficiency  from 
the  Cynics  and  out  of  these  constructed  an  elab¬ 
orate  scheme  of  optimism.  And,  again,  like  Epi¬ 
curus,  he  accepted  the  Xenocratic  division  of  phi¬ 
losophy  into  physics,  logic,  and  ethics,  and  un¬ 
dertook  to  lay  a  solid  basis  for  his  ethical  struc¬ 
ture  in  a  harmonized  theory  of  the  nature  of  the 
universe  and  in  what  seemed  to  him  a  sound  cri¬ 
terion  of  knowledge. 

In  forming  his  physical  system  to  this  end  it 
is  clear,  I  think,  that  Zeno  had  in  view  the  Pla¬ 
tonic  cosmos  and  especially  the  mythological 
scheme  of  the  Timaeus.  Like  Plato,  he  felt  the 


<Diog.  Laert.  VI,  15;  Epictetus,  Discourses  III,  xxi,  19. 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


74 

working  of  two  forces  in  the  composition  of  the 
world,  which  he  also  identified  with  a  creating 
God  and  brute  matter.  This  dualism,  manifest¬ 
ly  Platonic  in  conception,  runs  through  the  Sto¬ 
ics’  creed  and  colours  what  may  be  called  their 
philosophic  emotions  at  every  step ;  but  it  does 
so,  one  might  say,  despite  themselves  and  in  a 
manner  quite  inconsistent  with  their  fury  for 
rationalizing.  For  this  would  seem  to  be  a  dis¬ 
tinctive  note  of  the  Stoic  mind,  that  it  was  not 
content  to  abide  by  the  paradoxical  data  of  con¬ 
sciousness  and  to  employ  reason  in  the  service  of 
these  data,  but  was  convinced  that  reason  can 
transcend  the  facts  of  experience  and  explain 
the  nature  of  things  by  an  hypothesis  of  its  own. 
Any  hope  of  a  self-sufficient  life,  they  thought, 
must  be  based  on  a  theory  of  the  world  in  which 
we  live  as  itself  self-sufficient,  with  no  disturb¬ 
ing  defect  and  no  inherent  inconsistencies,  a  rea¬ 
soned  and  perfect  unit.  The  process  by  which 
they  satisfied  these  demands  of  rational  opti¬ 
mism  is  fairly  clear,  and  the  results  beautifully 
simple — if  only  they  had  any  basis  of  truth. 

In  the  first  place  reason  looks  for  a  continu¬ 
ous  and  comprehensible  system  of  cause  and  ef¬ 
fect,  and  in  this  demand  it  finds  itself  baffled  at 
the  outset  by  the  relation  between  spirit,  or  the 


CYNICS  AND  STOICS 


75 

immaterial,  and  matter.  The  problem  is  not  pe¬ 
culiar  to  the  Stoics,  and  the  solution  has  been  re¬ 
peated  whenever  rationalism  has  usurped  the 
field  of  thought.  Thus  it  goes.  We  are  aware,  as 
it  seems  to  us,  of  two  factors  in  ourselves  mak¬ 
ing  a  composite  creature,  mind  and  body,  spirit 
and  matter.  We  know  also  that  in  some  way 
these  two  elements  of  our  constitution  act  and 
suffer  together :  we  are  sick,  and  the  mind  is  af¬ 
fected;  we  think  or  feel,  and  the  body  is  affect¬ 
ed.  There  appears  to  be  some  kind  of  interaction 
between  the  two  elements,  yet  no  investigation 
of  psychology  or  physiology  has  ever  succeeded 
in  laying  a  finger  on  the  nexus  of  cause  and  ef¬ 
fect,  and  indeed  any  such  bond  is  incomprehen¬ 
sible,  even  repellent,  to  reason,  so  long  as  we 
conceive  body  and  soul,  the  material  and  the  im¬ 
material,  as  belonging  to  two  distinct  orders  of 
being.  Hence  rationalism,  in  its  search  for  a 
closed  system  of  cause  and  effect,  has  invariably 
tended  to  escape  this  dualism  by  defining  mind 
and  soul  in  terms  of  matter  and  body,  or  by  de¬ 
fining  matter  and  body  in  terms  of  mind  and 
soul.  The  former  of  these  adaptations  is  the  eas¬ 
ier,  for  the  very  simple  reason  that  body  forces 
itself  peremptorily  upon  our  senses,  whereas 
soul  is  elusive  and  can  more  readily,  so  to  speak, 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


76 

be  argued  out  of  sight ;  and  this,  consequently, 
has  been  the  path  commonly  pursued.  Certain¬ 
ly  it  was  the  course  taken  by  Zeno,  as  may  be 
shown  by  putting  together  several  of  the  Stoic 
arguments : 

“Nothing  incorporeal  feels  with  ( sympaschei 
'has  the  same  affection  with,’  ‘is  connected  caus¬ 
ally  with’ )  body,  nor  does  body  feel  with  the  in¬ 
corporeal,  but  body  with  body.  Now  the  soul 
feels  with  the  body  in  sickness  or  under  the  knife, 
and  the  body  feels  with  the  soul,  turning  red 
when  the  soul  is  ashamed  and  pale  when  the  soul 
is  afraid.  Therefore  the  soul  is  body.” 

“There  are  those  who  think  that  nothing  can 
cause  motion  which  is  itself  motionless,  but  that 
every  thing  that  causes  motion  is  itself  in  motion. . 
And  evidently  this  was  the  view  of  those  ancient 
philosophers  who  held  that  the  first  principle, 
whether  one  or  multiple,  was  corporeal;  and 
among  the  moderns  it  is  the  view  of  the  Stoics.” 

(  In  the  following  sentences  the  writer  is  criti¬ 
cising  from  the  Peripatetic  point  of  view)  :  “We 
ought  not  to  begin  from  the  ultimate  principles 
of  causation,  that  is  to  say,  from  concussion  and 
thrust ;  nor  should  we  surrender  our  contention 
with  the  Stoics  who  hold  that  an  agent  produces 
its  effect  by  propinquity  and  contact.  It  is  bet¬ 
ter  to  say  that  all  causes  are  not  by  propinquity 
and  contact.” 


CYNICS  AND  STOICS 


77 

“Death  is  a  separation  of  soul  from  body.  But 
nothing  incorporeal  is  separated  from  body,  as 
on  the  other  hand  there  is  no  contact  between 
the  incorporeal  and  body.  But  the  soul  is  in  con¬ 
tact  with  body  and  is  separated  from  body; 
therefore  the  soul  is  body.” 

By  reasoning  such  as  this  Zeno  reduced  soul, 
or  spirit,  or  the  divine,  or  whatever  one  may 
choose  to  call  the  immaterial  element,  to  a  purely 
mechanical  operation.  His  definitions,  to  be  sure, 
left  room  for  a  troublesome  distinction  between 
energy  and  matter  to  be  explained  away  before 
a  thoroughly  materialistic  system  could  be  es¬ 
tablished;  but  the  Stoic  was  not  a  man  to  be 
frightened  by  any  such  bogey  of  the  intellect, 
and  he  will  evade  this  dualism  of  mechanics  by 
defining  energy  and  matter  as  nothing  more 
than  the  active  and  passive  aspects  of  one  and 
the  same  thing. To  be  sure  it  is  rather  a  puzzler 
for  the  monist  to  explain  how  a  uniform  sub¬ 
stance  can  act  on  itself  as  agent  and  be  acted 
upon  by  itself  as  patient,  and  perform  both 
operations  at  the  same  time ;  but  his  vocabulary 
is  not  exhausted,  however  his  reason  may  be  dis¬ 
concerted,  and  the  tonos  of  Chrysippus  and  the 
later  writers  was  devised,  apparently,  for  just 
this  purpose  of  finally  identifying  energy  and 
matter.  However,  as  no  critic  of  antiquity  seems 


78  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

* 

to  have  comprehended  the  precise  function  of 
this  famous  and  furiously  debated  term,  we  may 
avow  our  own  ignorance  unabashed,  and  pass 
on.  Whether  logically  or  illogically,  Zeno  had 
reached  a  completely  mechanistic  conception  of 
the  universe,  in  which  energy  is  only  another 
name  for  matter.5 

His  next  problem  was  to  reduce  the  apparent 
diversities  of  matter  itself  to  one  uniform  sub¬ 
stratum.  Here  he  proceeded,  so  far  as  I  can  see, 
by  a  sheer  plunge  of  the  reason  rather  than  by 
logical  steps.  Falling  back  upon  the  ancient  hy- 
lozoistic  philosophies,  which  found  the  source  of 
nature  in  some  one  primordial  stuff  possessing 
the  characteristics  of  life,  and  more  particularly 
upon  Heraclitus,  he  declared  that  the  universal 
substratum  of  things  was  fire,  or  an  element  like 
fire  in  its  fineness  and  fluidity.  So  stated,  the 
theory  sounds  crude  enough  to  ears  accustomed 
to  the  modern  conception  of  combustion ;  but  if 
for  the  moment  we  suppress  our  knowledge  of 
chemical  processes  and  accept  the  terminology 
of  the  Stoics,  the  physical  substratum  assumed 
by  Zeno  is  near  enough  to  the  nebular  hypothe¬ 
sis  of  Kant  to  command  our  respect  though  it 
may  not  warrant  our  assent.  At  any  rate  reason 


5See  Appendix  A. 


CYNICS  AND  STOICS 


79 

had  done  its  work ;  the  great  leap  had  been  taken 
from  the  dualism  of  experience  to  a  metaphysic 
of  absolute  monism. 

To  account  for  the  actual  condition  of  the 
world  in  its  manifold  diversity,  Zeno  had  re¬ 
course  to  the  process  of  evolution.  In  the  begin¬ 
ning  is  fire.  This  primary  substance  is  potential¬ 
ly  active  and  passive,  and  by  some  law  of  its 
being  the  passive  principle  in  it  thickens  and 
coarsens,  becomes  separate  from  the  active  prin¬ 
ciple,  and  develops  stage  by  stage  into  the  four 
elements  of  the  phenomenal  world:  fire,  air, 
water,  earth.  Meanwhile  the  active  principle  re¬ 
mains  unchanged,  and  penetrates  the  coarser 
elements  as  the  forming,  creating,  governing 
energy  of  the  cosmos.  In  the  gleaming  stars  of 
the  firmament  it  appears  with  uncontaminated 
splendour,  and  through  the  descending  scale  of 
creatures  it  manifests  itself  as  reason  in  man, 
soul  in  animals,  nature  in  plants,  and  he  oris  in 
inorganic  objects.  At  the  conclusion  of  time’s 
period  the  process  of  evolution  is  inverted,  and 
by  gradual  steps  the  world  is  absorbed  back  into 
the  primordial  element  from  which  it  sprang; 
fire  again  becomes  all  in  all,  until  once  more  the 
law  of  diversification  begins  its  work.  The  alter¬ 
nating  expansion  and  contraction,  evolution 


8o 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


and  involution,  are,  as  it  were,  the  diastole  and 
systole  of  the  world’s  great  heart,  the  everlast¬ 
ing  recurrence  by  which  the  same  series  of  events 
endlessly  repeat  themselves:  what  is  happen¬ 
ing  now,  has  happened  before,  and  will  happen 
again,  as  regularly  and  as  fatefully  and  as  me¬ 
chanically  as  the  swing  of  a  pendulum.6 

Such,  briefly  summarized,  is  the  physical  the¬ 
ory  of  Zeno,  which  was  carried  on  by  his  follow¬ 
ers  with  little  change.  Speaking  as  scientists  and 
in  the  cooler  moments  of  reason,  they  reduce  the 
universe  to  a  mere  machine  conceived  in  the  most 
grossly  materialistic  terms.  All  things  that  real¬ 
ly  exist  are  bodies,  and  those  phenomena  which 
other  men  define  in  terms  of  immaterial  energy 
are  explained  by  the  interpenetration  of  body 
in  body  or  by  the  mixture  of  body  with  body. 
Nor,  denying  the  existence  of  empty  space  with¬ 
in  the  confines  of  the  world,  are  they  repelled  by 
the  conclusion  that  such  a  theory  of  interpene¬ 
tration  implies  the  existence  of  two  bodies  in  the 
same  place  at  the  same  time.7  So  they  account 
for  the  operation  of  fate  and  Providence  and 
for  that  sympathy  of  part  with  part  which  binds 
the  universe  together  into  a  perfect  unity.  All 

6The  same  process  of  evolution  and  involution  will  be  met  with 
again  in  the  spiritual  monism  of  Plotinus. 

7J.  von  Arnim,  Stoicorum  Vet.  Frag.  II,  475. 


CYNICS  AND  STOICS 


81- 

these  things  are  the  mechanical  effects  of  a  dif¬ 
fusion  of  the  primordial  element  throughout  the 
visible  body  of  the  world,  as  it  were  matter  dis¬ 
solved  in  matter,  not  by  juxtaposition  of  particle 
to  particle,  but  by  cobcupation  of  the  same  space. 

And  it  is  characteristic  of  the  Stoic  mind  that, 
just  as  their  desire  to  define  all  activity  in  a  pure¬ 
ly  mechanical  formula  forces  them  in  the  end  to 
play  fast  and  loose  with  the  first  law  of  mechan¬ 
ics,  so  their  boldly  formulated  panhylism,  if  I 
may  invent  the  word  for  the  theory  of  material 
solutions,  can  suddenly  and  without  warning, 
slip  over  into  an  equally  bold  pantheism.  Almost, 
one  might  say,  at  the  whim  of  the  writer  the  im¬ 
manent  cause  of  the  world  may  be  described  in 
grossly  materialistic  terms,  or  it  may  be  digni¬ 
fied  as  God,  Providence,  logos,  the  universal 
soul,  with  all  the  spiritual  connotation  of  such 
words  as  they  are  commonly  used.8  That  is  the 
sort  of  logical  legerdemain  to  which  the  monist 
is  inevitably  brought  at  last  by  the  stern  neces¬ 
sity  of  facts;  and  so  it  happens  that  the  same 
philosophy  after  many  centuries  has  fathered 
the  science  of  a  Huxley  and  the  romanticism  of 

sThis.  is  a  residue  of  the  Timaean  mythology  which  clung  to  the 
Stoics  as  it  were  despite  themselves.  But  it  also  goes  back  to  the 
original  discrepancy  of  the  Heraclitean  fire  and  logos  as  two  ill- 
consorted  principles  of  evolution.  See  Aall,  Geschiclite  der  Log- 
osidee  I,  IS,  129. 


82 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


a  W ordsworth.  F or  the  pantheistic  turn  of  Stoic¬ 
ism,  which  will  colour  all  the  thoughts  of  such 
later  writers  as  Epictetus  and  Marcus  Aurelius 
and  Seneca,  we  can  go  back  to  the  second  master 
of  the  school,  Cleanthes,  whose  Hymn  to  Zeus 
fortunately  has  been  preserved.  It  contains,  as 
Mr.  Adam  has  observed,  “what  is  perhaps  the 
most  famous  expression  in  Greek  literature  of 
the  profoundly  religious  as  well  as  philosophic¬ 
al  doctrine  of  man’s  celestial  origin  and  nature” 
— the  most  famous,  undoubtedly,  in  religion 
owing  to  St.  Paul,  but,  with  certain  phrases  of 
Plato  echoing  in  my  mind,  I  should  be  slow  to 
say  the  most  profound  in  philosophy.  The  trans¬ 
lation  which  follows  is  from  Mr.  Adam’s  Vital¬ 
ity  of  Platonism : 

“O  God  most  glorious,  called  by  many  a  name. 

Nature’s  great  King,  through  endless  years  the  same; 
Omnipotence,  who  by  thy  just  decree 
Controllest  all,  hail,  Zeus,  for  unto  thee 
Behoves  thy  creatures  in  all  lands  to  call. 

We  are  thy  children,9  we  alone,  of  all 

9’E/c  aov  yap  yevbpieada. — The  reader  needs  no  reminder  of  Paul’s 
words  at  Athens  (Acts  xvii,  28)  :  ’Er  avripyap  £iopiev  Kaliavbijpieda  ical 
tapiev  chs  /cat  rives  rQ>v  Kad’  vpias  iron)TU)v  eip'fjKaai^  ToO  yap  Kal  yhos  ia/xiv. 
The  last  clause  is  taken  from  Aratus  (Phaenomena  5),  but  Paul’s 
use  of  the  plural  “poets”  may  indicate  that  he  had  also  in  mind 
the  equivalent  words  of  Cleanthes,  as  indeed  by  his  time  the  sen¬ 
timent  was  a  commonplace  of  philosophy.  Mr.  Adam,  comment¬ 
ing  on  the  clause,  “in  him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being,” 
observes  that  a  Stoic  would  rather  have  said,  “God  lives  in  us.” 


CYNICS  AND  STOICS  83 

On  earth’s  broad  ways  that  wander  to  and  fro, 

Bearing  thine  image  wheresoe’er  we  go. 

Wherefore  with  songs  of  praise  thy  power  I  will  forth 
shew. 

Lo  !  yonder  Heaven,  that  round  the  earth  is  wheeled, 
Follows  thy  guidance,  still  to  thee  doth  yield 
Glad  homage ;  thine  unconquerable  hand 
Such  flaming  minister,  the  levin-brand, 

Wieldeth,  a  sword  two-edged,  whose  deathless  might 
Pulsates  through  all  that  Nature  brings  to  light ; 

Vehicle  of  the  universal  Word,  that  flows 
Through  all,  and  in  the  light  celestial  glows 
Of  stars  both  great  and  small.  O  King  of  Kings 
Through  ceaseless  ages,  God,  whose  purpose  brings 
To  birth,  whate’er  on  land  or  in  the  sea 
Is  wrought,  or  in  high  heaven’s  immensity; 

Save  what  the  sinner  works  infatuate. 

N  ay,  but  thou  knowest  to  make  crooked  straight : 

Chaos  to  thee  is  order :  in  thine  eyes 
The  unloved  is  lovely,  who  didst  harmonize 
Things  evil  with  things  good,  that  there  should  be 
One  Word  through  all  things  everlastingly. 

One  Word — whose  voice  alas  !  the  wicked  spurn; 

Insatiate  for  the  good  their  spirits  yearn: 

Yet  seeing  see  not,  neither  hearing  hear 
God’s  universal  law,  which  those  revere, 

By  reason  guided,  happiness  who  win. 

The  rest,  unreasoning,  diverse  shapes  of  sin 
Self-prompted  follow:  for  an  idle  name 
Vainly  they  wrestle  in  the  lists  of  fame: 

Others  inordinately  riches  woo, 

Or  dissolute,  the  joys  of  flesh  pursue. 


84  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

Now  here^  now  there  they  wander,  fruitless  still. 

For  ever  seeking  good  and  finding  ill. 

Zeus  the  all-bountiful,  whom  darkness  shrouds, 

Whose  lightning  lightens  in  the  thunder-clouds  ; 

Thy  children  save  from  error’s  deadly  sway: 

Turn  thou  the  darkness  from  their  souls  away: 

Vouchsafe  that  unto  knowledge  they  attain; 

For  thou  by  knowledge  art  made  strong  to  reign 
O’er  all,  and  all  things  rulest  righteously. 

So  by  thee  honoured,  we  will  honour  thee, 

Praising  thy  works  continually  with  songs. 

As  mortals  should ;  nor  higher  meed  belongs 
E’en  to  the  gods,  than  justly  to  adore 
The  universal  law  for  evermore.” 

For  the  basis  of  his  logic  Zeno  took  the  or¬ 
ganon  of  Aristotle,  but  consistently  with  the 
materialism  of  his  physics,  made  sensation  the 
ultimate  source  of  all  thought  and  knowledge. 
This  department  of  the  Stoic  philosophy  was  for 
many  decades  the  subject  of  fierce  attack  from 
the  sceptics  on  the  one  side  and  from  the  idealists 
on  the  other  side.  It  is  not  within  my  province 
to  trace  the  long  and  tangled  course  of  this  his¬ 
tory  ;  only  a  word  must  be  said  in  regard  to  the 
phantasm  kataleptike  as  the  Stoic  criterion  of 
knowledge,  since  with  it  is  involved  the  ethical 
system  which  is  our  real  concern. 

Now  the  use  of  the  phrase  phantasia  katalep - 


CYNICS  AND  STOICS  85 

tike  was  more  or  less  modified  to  meet  the  hos¬ 
tile  criticism  it  evoked,  but  in  the  main  and  ulti¬ 
mately  its  meaning  is  clear  enough.  A  phantasia 
is  the  impression  made  in  the  mind  by  some  ex¬ 
ternal  object  through  the  senses,  and  this  im¬ 
pression  was  often  understood  in  a  gross  manner 
as  resembling  the  figure  made  upon  wax  by  a 
seal.  Kataleptike  ordinarily would  signify  grasp¬ 
ing,  or  comprehending;  but  it  may  also,  in  ac¬ 
cordance  with  the  common  ambiguity  of  active 
and  passive  in  Greek,  signify  grasped,  or  com¬ 
prehended;  and  there  has  been  a  good  deal  of 
dispute  among  modern  critics  as  to  whether  a 
phantasia  so  defined  implies  an  impression  made 
when  the  sense  clearly  grasps  and  comprehends 
the  object  perceived,  or  when  it  is  grasped  by 
the  object,  or  indeed  as  to  which  of  the  two  grasps 
or  is  grasped.10  In  either  case  it  was  an  impres¬ 
sion  so  distinct  and  vivid  and  consistent  and  per¬ 
manent  as  to  carry  its  own  conviction  of  certain¬ 
ty  and  to  be  its  own  criterion  of  truth.  Through 
such  impressions  the  objects  of  sense  are,  so  to 
speak,  exactly  reproduced  in  the  mind,  and  we 


loSextus  Emp.,  Adv.  Math .  vii,  257,  describes  the  kataleptic  pro¬ 
cess  vividly:  M 6vov  oi>x l  tcov  Tpix&v,  (pavt,  \ap,(3dveTcu,  KaTcunracra  hp^ds 
eis  crvyKaTadeaiv. 


86 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


attain  to  a  perfect  comprehension,  katalepsis,  of 
the  nature  of  the  world  as  it  is.11 

It  is  no  wonder  that  the  malicious  critics  of  the 
Porch  jumped  at  such  a  thesis  and  worried  it  as 
a  cat  plays  with  its  victim.  By  such  a  criterion, 
they  would  ask,  how  do  you  distinguish  between 
a  wise  man  and  a  fool,  when  each  swears  with 
equal  conviction  to  the  vigour  of  his  impression 
and  the  clarity  of  his  opinion?  It  was  apparently 
Arcesilas,  founder  of  the  Middle  Academy,  who 
started  the  mischief,  and  for  a  century  and  more 
there  was  a  running  battle  between  the  Stoic 
supporters  of  katalepsis  and  the  sceptical  main- 
tainers  of  akatalepsia  (“non-comprehensibil¬ 
ity”),  which  seems  to  have  afforded  vast  enter¬ 
tainment  to  all  concerned.  One  of  the  stories  of 
this  warfare  is  commonly  passed  over  by  the  his¬ 
torians  of  philosophy  as  too  frivolous  for  their 
graver  Muse ;  but  as  it  was  quoted  by  the  godly 
Eusebius  in  his  Preparation  for  the  Gospel,  and 
as  it  really  has  some  significance — at  least  for 

nThe  part  played  by  judgment  as  distinct  from  sensation  in  the 
final  act  of  comprehension,  the  existence  or  not  of  phantasies  de¬ 
rived  from  an  immaterial  source,  are  questions  much  agitated.  I 
do  not  pretend  to  have  any  firm  foothold  on  this  quaking  ground 
where  Stoic  psychology  and  epistemology  meet.  At  bottom  it 
should  seem  that  the  Stoics  were  trying  to  find  some  equivalent 
for  Plato’s  definition  of  knowledge  (Tlieaetetus  2 08b)  as  opdij  do£a 
per  a  \6yov,  but  by  their  monism,  which  leaves  no  place  for  a  dis¬ 
tinction  between  56£a  ( i.e .  atcrOrjcns)  and  \6yos,  were  driven  about 
in  a  vicious  circle.  Fortunately  my  theme  absolves  me  from  en¬ 
tering  upon  this  argument;  Bonhoffer  ( E'pictet  und  die  Stoa 
222  ff.  et  al.)  discusses  it  at  sufficient  length. 


CYNICS  AND  STOICS 


87 

any  one  who  is  inclined  to  take  lightly  all  the¬ 
ories  of  knowledge,  ancient  or  modern, — it  may 
find  a  place  in  these  pages.  It  is  related  of  a  cer¬ 
tain  Lacydes,  the  successor  of  Arcesilas  as  head 
of  the  Academy,  and  so,  nominally,  a  follower 
of  Plato. 

Now  this  Lacydes,  we  are  told,  was  a  stingy 
fellow  who  used  to  dole  out  the  stores  to  his 
household  with  a  tight  fist.  But  though  he  acted 
as  his  own  steward,  he  did  not  like  to  carry  the 
keys  about  with  him;  and  so  he  adopted  this 
habit.  Having  locked  the  pantry,  he  would  put 
the  key  in  a  desk,  seal  the  desk  with  his  signet, 
and  then  throw  the  signet  through  the  keyhole 
into  the  pantry.  When  next  he  wished  to  enter 
the  room,  he  would  break  the  seal  of  the  desk, 
get  the  key,  and  so  on.  Naturally  the  slaves 
soon  got  wind  of  this  procedure,  and  took  ad¬ 
vantage  of  it.  In  his  absence  they  would  raid 
the  pantry,  and  then  lock  the  room  just  as  their 
master  had  done.  Lacydes  to  his  surprise  would 
find  empty  vessels  where  he  had  left  them  full, 
and  could  not  understand  how  this  happened 
unless  his  eyes  deceived  him.  However  he  had 
heard  that  Arcesilas,  of  the  Academy,  was  ex¬ 
pounding  the  doctrine  of  incomprehensibility 
( akatalepsia )  against  the  Stoics,  that  is  to  say, 


88 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


was  teaching  that  we  can  derive  no  certain  know¬ 
ledge  from  what  we  see  and  hear.  So  to  school  to 
Arcesilas  our  Lacydes  went,  and  was  convinced 
that  the  new  doctrine  of  incomprehensibility  ex¬ 
plained  the  deception  of  his  eyes.  One  day  he  in¬ 
vited  a  friend  to  his  house,  and  began  to  lay  bare 
the  mysteries  of  scepticism,  giving  his  experi¬ 
ence  with  the  pantry  as  a  proof  of  the  fact  that 
our  senses  are  no  criterion  of  knowledge.  “What, 
he  argued,  “could  Zeno  himself  answer  to  my 
demonstration  of  incomprehensibility?  With 
my  own  hands  I  lock  up  everything,  seal  the 
desk,  and  throw  the  signet  into  the  room;  and 
then  when  I  come  back,  there  are  the  signet  and 
the  key  just  where  they  should  be,  but  the  stores 
have  all  the  appearance  of  not  being  as  I  left 
them.  What’s  to  be  made  of  it?  No  thief  could 
have  got  in,  because  the  key  is  sealed  up.  It’s 
just  that  we  can’t  put  any  dependence  on  our 
senses.”  At  this  tale  the  friend,  who  was  a  merry 
wag,  broke  out  into  uproarious  laughter,  and 
explained  to  the  victim  what  had  happened. 
Lacydes  thought  it  prudent  to  carry  the  signet 
about  with  him  after  that,  and  no  longer  used  his 
storeroom  as  a  demonstration  of  incomprehen¬ 
sibility  ;  nevertheless,  he  continued  his  sceptical 
studies  just  the  same.  But  the  slaves  were  not  to 


CYNICS  AND  STOICS  89 

be  outdone.  Whether  from  some  wicked  Stoic 
or  otherwise,  they  got  their  instruction,  and  made 
their  plans  accordingly.  They  simply  broke  the 
seal  on  the  desk,  took  the  key,  pilfered  the  pan¬ 
try,  locked  it  up,  put  the  key  back  in  the  desk, 
which  they  then  left  unsealed  or  sealed  with  any 
signet  they  could  find.  When  Lacydes  saw  the 
state  of  the  desk  and  accused  them  of  tampering 
with  the  seal,  they  calmly  assured  him  that  his 
senses  deceived  him  and  that  everything  was 
exactly  as  he  had  left  it.  “For  you  know,”  they 
would  say,  “one  can’t  form  any  sound  opinion 
from  what  one  sees ;  and  as  memory  is  a  kind  of 
opinion,  that  too  is  quite  untrustworthy.  You 
yourself  were  saying  as  much  to  a  friend  in  our 
hearing.”  Then  Lacydes  would  argue,  and  the 
slaves  would  counter-argue,  until  it  sounded  as 
if  all  the  denizens  of  the  Academy  and  the  Porch 
were  at  one  another’s  throats,  and  no  one  could 
tell  who  was  Academician  and  who  was  Stoic. 
Lacydes  kept  this  up  until  he  got  into  a  state  of 
utter  distraction,  and  could  only  cry  out  in  rage 
to  gods  and  neighbours.  At  last  he  settled  the 
difficulties  by  staying  at  home  and  keeping  watch 
on  the  door.  To  the  slaves  who  tried  to  ply  him 
with  the  old  doubting  questions,  he  would  say: 
“My  boys,  that’s  the  way  we  talk  about  these 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


90 

things  in  the  schools,  hut  we  live  differently.”12 

Lacydes,  at  least  as  he  comes  to  us  in  the  tra¬ 
dition,^  not  much  more  than  a  buffoon,  playing 
a  farcical  interlude  on  the  stage  of  the  Academy 
between  the  solemn  parts  of  Arcesilas  and  Car- 
neades.  But  out  of  the  mouths  of  fools  wisdom 
sometimes  proceeds,  and  perhaps  the  soundest 
conclusion  to  all  epistemological  debates  is  the 
genial  ejaculation  that  we  talk  one  way  in  the 
schools  and  live  another  way.  What  else  is  to  be 
made  of  any  argument  on  the  process  of  know¬ 
ing  when  every  step  of  the  argument  must  be 
based  on  an  assumption  of  this  same  process  of 
knowing? 

The  ethical  creed,  for  the  sake  of  which  Zeno 
built  up  his  physics  and  logic,  can  best  be  studied 
in  the  teaching  of  Epictetus,  who  in  the  main 
returned  to  the  original  principles  of  the  sect, 
though  no  doubt  something  of  the  Platonic  tone 
introduced  by  certain  schismatics  still  clung  to 
his  mind.  It  will  be  sufficient  to  note  here  two 
points.  In  the  first  place,  the  Cynical  contempt 
for  the  conventions  of  decency  remained  as  a 
kind  of  arnari  aliquid  in  the  Stoic  school,  con¬ 
trasting  painfully  with  its  finer  vein  of  moraliz¬ 
ing.  There  are  sayings  quoted  from  the  early 


12I  have  paraphrased  the  story  as  quoted  by  Eusebius  ( Praep . 
Ev.  XIV,  vii)  from  Numenius. 


CYNICS  AND  STOICS 


91 

masters  of  the  Porch  expressing  their,  theoret¬ 
ical  at  least,  indifference  to  the  most  abhorrent 
of  unnatural  vices.  And  this,  too,  is  a  logical  se¬ 
quence  of  a  monism  which  denies  all  ultimate 
distinctions,  as  Plato  showed  in  the  Gorgias.  In 
the  second  place,  it  is  clear  that  the  whole  ration¬ 
al  system  of  Zeno  was  worked  out  for  the  pur¬ 
pose  of  achieving  that  inner  and  moral  security 
which  was  the  desire  also  of  Cyrenaic  and  Epi¬ 
curean  but  was  plainly  incompatible  with  a  phi¬ 
losophy  of  pleasure  and  atomistic  chance.  Only 
in  a  world  absolutely  rational  and  continuous, 
absolutely  at  one  with  itself,  and  only  by  a  cri¬ 
terion  of  knowledge  which  enabled  us  to  repro¬ 
duce  such  a  world  exactly  in  our  own  reason, 
could  man,  as  the  Stoic  believed,  be  secure  in  the 
rational  government  of  his  own  life.  This  is  the 
significance  of  the  famous  maxim  “to  live  con¬ 
sistently  with  nature,”  or  “in  accordance  with 
nature,”  which  from  the  time  of  Cleanthes  was 
repeated  as  the  catchword  of  Stoic  ethics.  But — 
and  this  is  the  dire  Nemesis  that  tortured  their 
logic — by  the  means  adopted  for  attaining  such 
security  they  deprived  themselves  of  the  liberty 
which  was,  and  is,  equally  the  aim  of  philosophy. 
When  reason  has  reduced  the  world  to  a  fatalis¬ 
tic  machine,  any  talk  of  freedom  (  and  the  Stoics 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


92 

talked  much  of  it)  becomes  a  pitiful  mockery. 
If  Cyrenaic  and  Epicurean  saw  in  the  world  a 
place  of  liberty  without  security,  it  may  be  said 
that  the  Stoic  universe  is  for  the  soul  of  man  a 
place  of  security  without  liberty.  Yet  both  Epi¬ 
curean  and  Stoic  knew  and  felt  deeply  that  our 
security  and  liberty  cannot  be  severed,  but  are 
craved  as  one  thing. 

Meanwhile,  to  return  to  the  historical  devel¬ 
opment  of  Stoicism,  it  is  sufficient  for  our  pur¬ 
pose  to  mention  the  fact  that  after  Cleanthes 
the  leadership  of  the  school  passed  into  the  hands 
of  Chrysippus  ( ca.  280-205 ) ,  who  remains,  when 
all  criticism  has  been  made,  one  of  the  supreme 
masters  of  dialectic.  The  task  of  Chrysippus  was 
to  develop  and  organize  the  doctrines  laid  down 
by  Zeno  into  a  vast  metaphysical  system.  It  was 
said  of  him:  “Had  there  been  no  Chrysippus, 
there  had  been  no  Porch.”  Then  came  the  panic 
and  the  defection  of  the  so-called  Middle  Porch. 
From  the  virulent  attacks  to  which  the  contra¬ 
dictions  inherent  in  their  principles  laid  the 
Stoics  bare,  Panaetius  (flllB.c.)  and  Posido¬ 
nius  (f9l)  sought  relief  by  trying  to  merge  a 
Platonic  psychology  with  the  rigid  monism  of 
Zeno.  1ST o  doubt  the  results  of  this  “conflation,” 
or  “contamination,”  were  interesting,  and  since 


CYNICS  AND  STOICS  93 

the  publication  of  Schmekel’s  study  of  DieMitt- 
lere  Stoa  (1892)  Posidonius  in  particular  has 
become  for  the  historians  of  philosophy  a  figure 
of  almost  superstitious  reverence,  to  whom  they 
are  prone  to  trace  in  one  way  or  another  the  spir¬ 
itualistic  currents  that  prevailed  in  later  Greek 
thought.  But  there  is  a  good  deal  of  pure  con¬ 
jecture  in  all  this;  and  at  bottom  the  changes 
introduced  by  Panaetius  and  Posidonius,  so  far 
from  relieving  the  Stoic  system  of  its  inherent 
difficulties,  only  added  a  new  source  of  mental 
confusion.  The  radical  dualism  of  Plato  and  the 
absolute  rationalism  of  Zeno  can  never  be  made 
to  lie  down  comfortably  together. 


CHAPTER  IV 


EPICTETUS 

1 

I 

Epictetus  was  a  Phrygian-born  slave  of  Nero’s 
f  reedmanEpaphroditus.  He  was  lame,  f  rombirth 
or  by  disease,  as  the  cause  is  variously  reported. 
But  Celsus,  the  anti-Christian,  has  a  different 
story:  ‘‘When  his  master  was  twisting  his  leg, 
Epictetus  only  smiled,  and  said  calmly,  ‘You  will 
break  it.’  And  when  it  was  broken,  ‘I  told  you 
so.’  Did  your  God  [Jesus]  say  anything  like 
that  under  torture?”1  Whatever  may  be  the 
truth  of  this,  Epictetus,  at  some  time,  gained  his 
freedom,  and  set  up  a  school  of  philosophy  in 
Rome,  continuing  the  Stoic  lessons  he  had 
learned  under  Musonius  Rufus.  His  language 
was  Greek,  which  he  spoke  with  vigour  and  pre¬ 
cision,  if  not  with  elegance.  In  the  year  94  (?) 
Domitian  banished  the  philosophers,  and  Epic¬ 
tetus  transferred  his  classes  to  Nicopolis  in 

iQrigen,  Contra  Celsum  vii,  53. 


94 


EPICTETUS 


95 

Epirus.  He  died  in  old  age,  having  won  respect 
for  himself  as  a  man,  and  wide  renown  as  a 
teacher. 

Epictetus  wrote  nothing.  But  one  of  his  hear¬ 
ers,  the  historian  Arrian,  took  notes  of  his  lec¬ 
tures,  probably  in  shorthand,  and  published  the 
gist  of  these  in  several  books  of  Discourses ,  out 
of  which  he  also  compiled  a  brief  compendium,  or 
Manual.  Fortunately  Arrian,  as  he  declares  in 
his  preface  and  as  the  text  confirms,  has  repro¬ 
duced  pretty  faithfully  the  direct,  unadorned 
speech  of  the  lecturer,  with  the  result  that,  though 
we  know  so  little  of  Epictetus’  life,  he  is  extra¬ 
ordinarily  vivid  to  us  as  a  teacher ;  it  is  as  if  we 
were  actually  in  the  class-room,  and  heard  the 
lame  old  man,  as  he  calls  himself,  delivering  his 
rather  disjointed,  but  direct  and  powerful  ap¬ 
peals.  We  can  almost  see  the  pupils  as  they  sit 
taking  notes,  asking  a  question  now  and  then  or 
putting  in  an  objection.  For  the  most  part  they 
would  seem  to  have  belonged  to  the  upper  and 
official  classes,  young  men  who  came  over  to  this 
provincial  town  to  find  some  guide  which  should 
take  the  place  of  the  older  religious  sanctions, 
or  to  learn  the  way  to  strength  and  a  quiet  heart 
in  a  world  filled  with  fears  and  alarms,  or  mere¬ 
ly  to  acquire  such  readiness  of  tongue  and  such 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


96 

adroitness  in  argument  as  would  enable  them  to 
shine  in  a  polished  and  disputatious  society. 
These  last  were  apparently  the  more  numerous; 
at  least  their  presence  vexed  the  soul  of  the  stern 
disciplinarian,  and  over  and  over  again  he  turns 
aside  to  ridicule  their  vanity  and  to  warn  them 
that  they  are  wasting  their  time.  He  is  not  there 
to  impart  cleverness  in  the  exchange  of  paltry 
phrases,  but  to  train  the  will  and  prepare  for  the 
rude  contest  of  life.  “The  ship  is  sinking,”  he 
cries  out  to  those  who  wish  to  jump  immediately 
into  the  subtleties  of  logic,  “the  sea  is  breaking 
over  you,  yet  you  would  hoist  the  topsails!”2 

Occasionally  some  traveller  strolls  into  the 
hall  where  this  strange  professor  of  philosophy 
is  holding  forth,  whose  fame  has  reached  him 
through  the  noise  of  the  Empire’s  business ;  and 
sometimes  the  sightseer  is  greeted  with  such 
words  about  himself  as  must  have  sent  him  out 
with  tingling  ears.  A  notable  scholar,  who  had 
been  detected  in  adultery,  ventures  in,  and  hears 
a  terrible  diatribe  on  the  baseness  of  such  a  sin. 
What,  one  wonders,  were  the  pupils  doing  while 
the  master  was  pouring  denunciation  on  the 
poor  victim?  How  did  the  victim  take  it?  Did  he 


2This  is  the  tone  and  almost  the  words  of  Buddha  in  regard  to 
metaphysical  dispute. 


EPICTETUS 


97 

sit  patiently,  with  a  Stoic  smile,  through  the 
storm? 

Constantly  also  the  master  talks  about  him¬ 
self,  humbly,  proudly,  with  wistful  earnestness. 
Once  he  has  been  telling  about  a  pardoned  exile 
who  had  been  in  charge  of  the  com- supply  in 
Rome,  and  who  had  protested  to  Epictetus,  on 
his  way  back,  that  the  rest  of  his  life  should  be 
devoted  to  retirement  and  tranquillity — only  to 
plunge,  as  Epictetus  predicted,  more  deeply 
than  ever  into  ambitious  schemes  on  reaching 
Rome.  And  then  Epictetus  suddenly  thinks  of 
himself : 

“Do  I  say  that  the  creature  man  is  not  to  be 
active?  Heaven  forbid!  But  what  is  it  that  fet¬ 
ters  our  faculty  of  action?  Take  myself  first: 
when  day  comes,  1  remind  myself  a  little  as  to 
what  lesson  I  ought  to  read  to  my  pupils.  Then 
in  a  moment  I  find  myself  saying,  ‘But  what  do 
I  really  care  what  sort  of  lesson  I  give  to  this 
man  or  that?  The  first  thing  is  for  me  to  sleep.’ 
And  yet,  how  can  the  business  of  those  world¬ 
lings  be  compared  in  importance  with  ours?  If 
you  attend  to  what  they  are  doing  you  will  see 
the  difference.  They  do  nothing  all  day  long  ex¬ 
cept  vote,  dispute,  deliberate  about  a  handful  of 
corn  or  an  acre  of  land,  and  petty  profits  of  this 
sort.  Is  there  any  resemblance  between  receiv¬ 
ing  and  reading  a  petition  such  as  this:  T  beg 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


98 

you  to  let  me  export  a  little  corn/  and  a  petition 
such  as,  ‘I  beg  you  to  inquire  from  Chrysippus 
how  the  universe  is  governed,  and  what  position 
the  rational  creature  holds  in  it ;  inquire  too  who 
you  are  and  what  is  good  for  you,  and  what  is 
evil’  ?  What  have  these  petitions  in  common?  Do 
both  demand  the  same  attention?  Is  it  equally 
shameful  to  neglect  one  and  to  neglect  the  other? 

“What  is  my  conclusion?  Are  we  elders  alone 
indolent  and  sleepy?  1ST ay,  the  fault  is  much 
rather  with  you  young  men.  For,  indeed,  we  old 
folk,  when  we  see  young  men  playing,  are  only 
too  eager  and  ready  to  join  their  play.  Much 
more,  if  I  saw  them  thoroughly  awakened  and 
eager  to  share  my  studies,  should  I  also  be  eager 
myself  to  take  my  studies  seriously.”3 

II 

As  for  the  system  of  philosophy  expounded  by 
Epictetus,  there  was  not  much  of  originality 
here,  and,  indeed,  originality  in  the  matter  of  his 
teaching  was  the  last  thing  he  aimed  at.  In  the 
main  his  lectures,  apparently,  took  the  form  of 
reading  and  interpreting  the  Stoic  doctrine  of 
Chrysippus,  though  this  formal  side  of  his  in- 

sMost  of  the  quotations  from  Epictetus  in  this  chapter  are  from 
the  excellent  translation  by  P.  E.  Matheson  (Clarendon  Press, 
1916).  But  in  some  cases  I  have  altered  the  language  freely,  so 
that  Mr.  Matheson  should  not  be  held  responsible  for  any  word 
or  phrase  without  reference  to  his  work. 


EPICTETUS 


99 

struction  is  for  the  most  part  passed  over  by 
Arrian.  Philosophy  for  Epictetus,  as  for  the 
other  teachers  of  his  day,  was  divided  into  three 
heads :  physics,  ethics,  and  logic ;  and  if  he  had 
little  to  say  about  the  first  of  these  branches,  its 
subject  matter,  nevertheless,  lay  in  his  mind  as 
the  background  of  all  his  reasoning.  The  mater¬ 
ialism  of  the  earlier  school  had  been  softened  in 
the  course  of  time;  there  is  scarcely  a  hint  in 
Epictetus  of  the  primitive  stuff  of  the  world, 
and  he  would  willingly  let  us  forget  that  the 
soul  is  only  a  finer  substance  than  those  of  which 
our  bodies  are  composed.  The  identification  of 
that  fiery  element  with  reason  (logos)  had  be¬ 
come  more  complete,  and  his  thoughts  turned 
rather  to  God  and  to  God’s  providential  gov¬ 
ernment  of  the  world  than  to  any  mechanical 
law  of  nature.  Yet  if  the  materialism  of  the 
school  has  been  shoved  into  the  background, 
their  monism,  theoretically  at  least,  has  suffer¬ 
ed  no  relaxation.  The  Providence  of  God  is  an 
absolute  fatality,  and  whatever  is,  by  virtue  of 
its  necessity,  of  its  very  being,  is  right. 

Confronted  by  the  great  problem  of  evil  as  a 
disturbing  factor  in  the  nature  of  things,  Epic¬ 
tetus,  in  what  may  be  called  his  objective  theory 
of  ethics,  contented  himself  with  the  familiar 


100 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


paradox  which  the  Stoics  had  learnt  from  Plato, 
while  passing  over  Plato’s  alleviation  of  its  irri¬ 
tating  inadequacy.4  For  the  composition  of  the 
universe  as  a  whole  it  is  necessary  that  there 
should  be  an  infinite  number  of  parts  each  in¬ 
complete  in  itself.  What  seems  evil  to  any  indi¬ 
vidual  member  of  the  corporate  body  is  this 
inevitable  incompleteness.  The  perfection  and 
well-being  of  the  whole  are  conditioned  by  the 
imperfection  and  limitation  of  the  parts.  To  this 
explanation  Epictetus  followed  his  predecessors 
in  adding  another,  which  is  nothing  more  than 
the  same  physical  paradox  expressed  in  the 
terms  of  ethics :  our  character — and  the  happi¬ 
ness  springing  from  character — depends  on  the 
strength  derived  from  resistance  to  opposition ; 
the  suffering  which  we  call  evil  is  merely  the 
gymnastic  exercise  by  which  we  acquire  self- 
mastery,  and  as  such  is  our  good  in  disguise.  So 
Heracles  would  never  have  been  himself  or  real¬ 
ized  his  divinity  but  for  his  victory  of  endurance 
through  the  twelve  labours.  It  is  patent  that 
such  an  explanation  leaves  the  heart  of  the  mat¬ 
ter  untouched,  and  affords  no  answer  to  the 
troublesome  query  why  the  perfection  of  the 
world  as  a  whole  should  require  the  conscious 


*See  The  Religion  of  Plato  145  ff.,  235. 


EPICTETUS 


101 


imperfection  of  the  parts,  or  why  our  good  must 
be  wrung  out  of  suffering.  But  we  need  not  be 
too  severe  with  Epictetus  for  juggling  with  a 
sophism  which,  time-worn  and  frayed  as  it  is, 
still  goes  on  doing  duty  after  these  thousands 
of  years. 

Indeed,  Epictetus  himself  was  aware  of  the 
insufficiency  of  such  an  answer,  taken  alone,  to 
the  insistent  problem  of  philosophy.  He  was 
always  and  above  all  a  moralist,  and  the  voice  of 
conscience  was  still  an  ugly  fact  which  he  had  to 
meet.  Thinking  of  the  world  wherein  men  live, 
he  might  say  that  whatever  is  is  right,  but  think¬ 
ing  of  man  himself,  speaking  from  the  depths  of 
his  own  consciousness,  he  was  bound  to  consider 
the  prolepseis,  as  the  Stoics  called  them,  the 
primary  presuppositions,  or  preconceptions,  of 
good  and  evil,  the  conviction  common  to  all  men 
that  some  things  are  well  with  them  and  other 
things  are  not  well  with  them.  The  task  of  the 
Stoic  philosopher,  then,  was  to  find  some  term 
of  reconciliation  for  the  optimism  of  his  monis¬ 
tic  physics  and  the  ethical  dualism  which  as  a 
true  moralist  he  could  not  escape. 

So  much  will  be  clear  from  the  Stoic  point  of 
view :  since  the  world  itself  is  absolutely  deter¬ 
mined  and  absolutely  right,  the  distinction  of 


102 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


good  and  evil  lies  not  in  the  nature  of  things,  but 
is  purely  subjective;  it  is  in  ourselves,  involved 
somehow  in  our  act  of  imagining  such  a  distinc¬ 
tion.  It  is  we  who  have  eaten  of  the  tree  of  the 
knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  and  for  ourselves 
corrupted  what  is  incorruptible.  “All  things  are 
opinion,”5  said  Marcus  Aurelius — which  is  not 
equivalent  to  the  Shakespearian  maxim:  “There 
is  nothing  either  good  or  bad  but  thinking  makes 
it  so,”  but  means  rather:  All  things  are  good 
although  thinking  may  make  them  to  appear  ill. 
That  is  the  beginning,  and  that  is  the  end,  of 
Stoicism,  summed  up  in  the  one  word  dogma 
(“judgment,”  “opinion,”  “the  way  things  seem 
to  us”) ,  which  runs  through  all  the  chapters  of 
Epictetus  like  the  binding  refrain  of  a  chant. 

What,  then,  more  precisely  are  these  dog¬ 
mata?  The  reply  to  this  question  breaks  into  a 
group  of  propositions  which  occur  either  alone 
or  in  various  combinations  with  almost  dam¬ 
nable  iteration;  they  form  what  I  may  call  the 
Stoic  Wheel,  though  the  phrase  itself  was  not 
in  use. 

THE  STOIC  WHEEL 

1.  What  are  dogmata? 

Certain  things  are  ours belonging  to  us, 
in  a  sense  we. 


5xii,  8:  Ildvra  vTrt)\r)\pis. 


EPICTETUS 


103 

Other  things  are  not  ours ,  another’s,  for¬ 
eign,  alien,  not  we. 

2.  What  are  ours?  what  not  ours? 

Ours  are  things  in  our  power,  under  our 
control. 

N ot  ours  are  things  not  in  our  power ,  not 
under  our  control. 

3.  What  are  in  our  power?  whatnotinourpower? 

In  our  power  are  things  voluntary,  mat¬ 
ters  of  our  will,  choice. 

Not  in  our  power  are  things  involuntary . 

4.  What  are  voluntary?  what  involuntary ? 

We  can  exercise  our  will  in  the  use  of 
impressions,  or  phantasies. 

We  cannot  exercise  our  will  in  the  im¬ 
pressions  themselves.6 

But  what  is  meant  by  this  “use”  of  impres¬ 
sions  which  we  have  reached  in  our  attempt  to 
define  the  nature  of  dogmata?  Now  an  impres¬ 
sion,  phantasy,  phantasia,  in  the  simplest  terms 
is  the  change  produced  in  the  mind  by  an  exter¬ 
nal  object,  the  image  that  corresponds  with  what 
we  perceive  and  that  remains  after  the  imme¬ 
diate  act  of  perception.  The  difference  between 
an  impression  and  the  use  of  an  impression  may 
be  illustrated  thus.  A  man  is  on  a  vessel  at  sea, 
and  looking  out  receives  an  image,  or  picture,  of 

eOurs,  l'5ta;  not  ours,  aX\6rpia’,  in  our  power,  ra£(p’  rjpup;  voluntary, 
TvpoaipeTiKOL ;  will,  -jrpoalpecris-,  impressions, cpapraaLai-,  use  of  impres¬ 
sions,  x/>? 7<ris  tup  (paPTaaiup. 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


104 

a  boundless  expanse  of  water;  that  is  a  phan¬ 
tasy.  Then,  perhaps,  there  comes  upon  him  a 
feeling  of  awe  or  terror  at  the  thought  of  his 
own  littleness  and  helplessness  amidst  this  vast, 
weltering,  inhuman  power;  that  is  not  a  phan¬ 
tasy,  but  his  own  use  of  a  phantasy.  Again,  a 
storm  arises,  and  the  picture  is  formed  in  his 
mind  of  rushing  winds  and  beating  waves ;  that 
is  a  phantasy.  The  story  of  men  drowned  at  sea 
recurs  to  memory,  and  this  too  produces  a  phan¬ 
tasy.  But  suppose  he  allows  these  images  to  un¬ 
man  him  with  fear:  that  is  not  a  phantasy,  but 
the  use  of  a  phantasy ;  it  is  not  the  bare  image  of 
death  that  causes  his  distress,  but  the  thought, 
or  dogma,  that  death  is  a  fearful  event.7 

Thus  the  use  of  impressions  is  our  thought 
about  them,  our  j  udgment  of  their  character  and 
consequences,  in  a  word  our  dogmata ;  and  so  the 
circle  is  completed,  the  Wheel  has  come  full 
around  to  its  starting  point.  Then,  again,  from 
dogmata  we  may  proceed  as  before.  What  is  a 
dogma,  we  ask  again;  and  the  answer  is  the 

iPhcintasia  means  not  only  an  immediate  image  created  by 
some  impression  from  without,  but  is  used  also  for  the  chain  of 
images  that  may  follow  in  the  mind.  When  a  distinction  is  made 
between  phantasiai  and  the  use  of  phantasiai,  the  phantasia  is  an 
immediate  image  not  under  our  control,  while  the  “use”  includes 
the  successive  images  and  judgments  raised  by  the  imagination 
and  so  under  our  control.  In  this  sense  the  word  for  imagination 
is  anaplasis.  (see  III,  xxiv,  108  if.) 


EPICTETUS 


105 

same,  the  judgment  that  certain  things  are  ours 
and  certain  other  things  foreign  to  us,  not  ours. 
But  the  last  link  of  the  chain  is  now  in  our  defi¬ 
nition  as  well  as  the  first,  and  these  things  that 
are  ours  we  know  to  be  the  use  of  impressions  as 
distinguished  from  the  impressions  themselves 
which  are  not  ours  ( since  their  cause  is  outside 
of  us)  ;  and  the  use  of  impressions  we  know  to 
be  just  the  dogmata  we  form  about  them.  So  of 
the  second  step.  The  things  that  are  ours  are 
those  in  our  power,  and  the  things  that  are  for¬ 
eign  to  us  are  those  not  in  our  power.  But  again 
the  definition  has  this  new  content :  we  know  also 
that  the  things  in  our  power  are  the  use  of  im¬ 
pressions,  whereas  the  things  not  in  our  power 
are  the  impressions  themselves,  and  the  use  of 
impressions  we  know  to  be  just  our  dogmata.  It 
may  seem  that  our  so-called  Wheel  is  merely  a 
vicious  circle,  since  the  reasoning,  if  reasoning 
it  be,  amounts  to  no  more  than  this:  we  have 
dogmata  that  certain  things  are  ours,  and  these 
things  which  are  ours  are  nothing  but  our  dog¬ 
mata  ;  or,  things  themselves  are  not  in  our  pow¬ 
er,  but  it  is  in  our  power  to  form  judgments  con¬ 
cerning  them,  and  the  judgments  we  form  are 
that  things  are  not  in  our  power.  Certainly  that, 
taken  alone,  if  it  is  not  what  logicians  term  a 


106  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

vicious  circle,  is  at  least  a  wheel  revolving  upon 
itself  and  carrying  us  nowhere.  Somehow  the 
fact  of  good  and  evil,  as  a  matter  of  dogma, 
seems  to  have  slipped  in  between  impressions 
and  the  use  of  impressions,  but  as  yet  we  have 
been  brought  no  closer  to  knowing  just  what 
good  is  and  just  what  evil  is. 

Now  it  is  from  difficulties  of  this  kind,  Epic¬ 
tetus  says,  that  education  and  philosophy  take 
their  origin.  Men  are  so  constituted  by  nature 
that  some  things  seem  to  them  for  their  profit, 
other  things  for  their  harm.  In  this  sense  all  men 
are  horn  with  preconceptions,  or  innate  ideas, 
of  good  and  evil.  So  far  we  are  all  alike ;  but  the 
moment  we  apply  these  preconceptions  to  par¬ 
ticular  cases,  the  moment  we  say  this  man  is 
good,  or  this  act  is  right,  or  this  condition  is 
well,  or  the  contrary,  that  moment  there  is  dis¬ 
agreement  and  discord.8  What  else  was  the 
cause  of  the  Trojan  war  but  such  a  disagree¬ 
ment  between  Menelaus  and  Paris?  And  what 
brought  about  the  long  calamities  of  the  Greek 
host  but  a  similar  conflict  of  opinion  between 
Agamemnon  and  Achilles?  Philosophy,  then, 
will  be  the  endeavour  to  find  some  rule  by  which 
we  can  give  practical  content  to  the  abstract  no- 


8To  this  extent  the  whole  Stoic  philosophy  is  anticipated  in  the 
Euthyphro  of  Plato. 


EPICTETUS 


107 

tions  of  good  and  evil,  or,  to  use  the  technical 
term  of  the  Porch,  it  will  be  the  Application 
( epharmoge )  of  our  general  preconceptions  of 
right  and  wrong,  advantage  and  disadvantage, 
to  particular  cases.  And  education  in  philosophy 
will  be  to  the  end  that  men  may  arrive  at  con¬ 
cord  through  such  a  rule.  To  this  point  all  the 
schools  would  be  in  agreement ;  but  for  the  Stoic, 
with  his  assumption  that  the  world  itself  is  right 
and  that  evil  is  only  in  our  dogmata,  the  appli¬ 
cation  would  be,  if  the  metaphor  is  not  too  harsh, 
by  giving  some  forward  motion  to  that  Wheel 
which  seemed  to  he  revolving  about  a  fixed 
centre. 

In  the  working  out  of  this  application  into  a 
complete  code  we  meet  with  the  one  important 
contribution  made  by  Epictetus  to  the  Stoic 
philosophy.  In  general  he  was  content  to  adhere 
closely  to  the  system  developed  by  Zeno  and 
Cleanthes,  and  particularly  by  Chrysippus,  of 
whom  he  speaks  in  language  of  reverence  like 
that  employed  by  Lucretius  of  Epicurus.  But 
in  his  division  of  ethics  into  three  topoi ,  “de¬ 
partments,”  or  “fields,”  at  least  in  the  detailed 
use  of  that  division,  he  appears  to  have  struck 
out  for  himself ;  and  it  is  a  notable  achievement. 
“There  are  three  fields,”  he  says,  “in  which  a 


io8 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


man  who  is  good  and  noble  [ i.e who  is  to  apply 
his  preconceptions  rightly  to  conduct]  must  be 
trained.  The  first  concerns  desires  and  aver¬ 
sions;  he  must  be  trained  not  to  fail  of  that 
which  he  desires,  nor  to  fall  into  that  for  which 
he  has  an  aversion.  The  second  field  is  concerned 
with  impulses  to  act  and  not  to  act,  and,  in  a 
word,  with  what  is  fitting :  that  we  should  act  in 
order,  with  due  consideration,  and  with  proper 
care.  The  object  of  the  third  field  is  that  we  may 
not  be  deceived,  and  may  not  act  at  random; 
and,  generally,  it  is  concerned  with  assent.”  In 
a  loose  way  these  three  fields  correspond  with 
the  normal  tripartite  division  of  philosophy,  the 
first  with  physics,  the  second  with  ethics  in  the 
narrower  sense  of  practical  conduct,  the  third 
with  logic ;  but  the  correspondence,  except  per¬ 
haps  in  the  case  of  the  third  pair,  was  never 
drawn  out  explicitly  by  Epictetus,  and  should 
not  be  pressed.  All  philosophy  was  virtually 
ethics  for  him. 


Ill 

The  First  Field,  or  Department,  of  ethics  is 
concerned  with  our  desires  and  aversions;  and 
if  happiness  is  the  end  which  all  men  seek,  then 
it  should  seem  to  follow  simply  enough  that  the 


EPICTETUS 


109 

purpose  of  philosophy  will  be  to  instruct  us  how 
to  obtain  what  we  desire  and  to  avert  what  we 
desire  not.  But  we  need  no  long  experience  of 
the  world  to  learn  that  it  moves  on  at  its  own 
sweet  will,  with  scant  regard  to  our  desires.  The 
Cyrenaic  and  Epicurean  had  discovered  this 
truth  to  their  great  cost : 

“The  worldly  Hope  men  set  their  Hearts  upon 
Turns  Ashes — or  it  prospers;  and  anon, 

Like  Snow  upon  the  Desert’s  dusty  Face, 

Lighting  a  little  hour  or  two — was  gone.” 

Not  in  that  direction  lies  the  path  of  philoso¬ 
phy,  and  he  who  would  snatch  at  the  fleeting 
gifts  of  pleasure  has  staked  his  happiness  on  the 
most  fickle  of  all  chances.  The  Stoic  will  turn 
another  way,  and  will  alter  himself  to  fit  a  world 
which  itself  he  finds  he  can  so  little  alter.  He 
will  make  his  desire  sure,  unhampered,  unforced, 
unhindered,  and  his  aversion  equally  secure  of 
liability.  And  there  is  one  way  alone  to  accom¬ 
plish  this :  by  limiting  his  desires  to  those  things 
which  are  within  his  power  and  subject  to  his 
will,  to  those  things,  in  a  word,  which  are  his 
own.  Not  his  are  the  circumstances  of  existence ; 
not  his  are  health  and  riches  and  prosperity,  not 
friends  or  wife  or  children  or  fatherland,  not  life 
itself.  These  he  can  control  but  a  little,  if  at  all ; 
they  are  outside  of  him,  coming  and  going  by 


no 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


their  own  right.  They  are  indeed  within  him  by 
the  phantasies  they  produce  in  his  mind,  but 
over  these  phantasies  also  he  has  no  arbitration ; 
they  are  what  they  are.  His  domain  extends  no 
further  than  the  voluntary  use  of  these  impres¬ 
sions,  by  forming  of  them  what  judgments  he 
chooses.  And  in  one  way  only  can  he  judge  of 
them  so  as  always  to  have  his  desire:  he  must 
hold  fast  to  the  belief  that  whatever  is  is  right 
and  therefore  for  the  interest  of  himself  as  a 
part  of  the  whole,  and  that  whatever  is  not  can¬ 
not  be  desirable. 

Such  then  is  the  first  step  in  the  application 
of  general  ideas  to  the  particular  needs  of  life. 
All  men  are  born  alike  with  preconceptions  of 
good  and  evil ;  they  disagree  one  with  another  be¬ 
cause  they  apply  these  preconceptions  to  exter¬ 
nal  objects  and  conditions.  The  Stoic  will  tell 
us  that  none  of  these  things  for  which  we  con¬ 
tend  is  either  good  or  evil,  but  in  themselves  all, 
without  exception,  are  ultimately  indifferent 
(adiaphora) .  The  distinction  of  good  and  evil  is 
not  there,  but  lies  within  the  scope  of  the  human 
will;  it  is  my  good  to  conform  my  desires  to 
things  as  they  are,  it  is  my  evil  to  desire  things 
to  be  other  than  God  has  ordered  them  or  to  set 
my  will  in  opposition  to  the  decrees  of  Provi- 


EPICTETUS  ill 

dence.  All  the  circumstances  of  life  are  indiffer¬ 
ent,  in  the  sense  that  in  themselves  they  are  nei¬ 
ther  good  nor  evil,  but  that  we  may  create  either 
good  or  evil  for  ourselves  by  our  attitude  towards 
them.9 

It  may  appear  that  such  a  conclusion  leaves 
us  still  revolving  in  the  same  vicious  circle  of 
dogmata:  we  have  dogmata  of  good  and  evil, 
and  good  and  evil  are  our  dogmata;  but  in  fact 
we  have  taken  a  long  step  forward.  “What 
then/’  Epictetus  asks,  “is  the  fruit  of  these  dog¬ 
mata?”  And  he  answers:  “The  fairest  and  most 
becoming  fruit  for  those  who  are  truly  educat¬ 
ing  themselves — tranquillity,  fearlessness,  liber¬ 
ty”  ;  to  which  may  be  joined  the  peculiar  virtue 
of  Stoicism,  apathy.  Now  the  passions  (pathe) 
are  those  emotions  that  trouble  the  soul  when  it 
fails  to  get  what  it  desires  or  falls  into  that  for 
which  it  has  aversion,  and  the  apathetic  man  is 
he  who,  by  right  dogmata,  has  raised  himself 


9lt  is  not  my  fault  if  we  have  fallen  already  into  a  startling  in¬ 
consistency.  All  things  are  right,  and  our  dogmata  cannot  alter 
this  fact;  yet  in  the  same  breath  we  are  told  that  the  circum¬ 
stances  of  life  are  indilferent  and  become  the  source  of  good  or 
evil  in  accordance  with  our  dogmata.  This  is  the  antinomy  run¬ 
ning  all  through  Stoicism,  as  the  world  is  regarded  objectively 
or  subjectively:  objectively  regarded  it  is  good,  subjectively  it 
may  be  good  or  evil;  but,  and  this  is  the  crux,  how  in  a  monistic 
system  can  there  be  any  radical  distinction  between  objective  and 
subjective? 


112 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


above  the  possibility  of  just  these  emotions.  He, 
too,  is  the  tranquil  man,  since  nothing  can  per¬ 
turb  him,  and  fearless,  since  nothing  that  he  re¬ 
gards  as  misfortune  can  befall  him,  and  free, 
because  his  dogmata  are  his  own  and  are  sub¬ 
ject  to  no  outer  control.  Stoic  apathy,  so  under¬ 
stood,  though  it  may  be  far  from  the  Christian 
virtue  implied  in  the  same  term,10  must  not  be 
condemned  as  a  state  of  sullen  insensibility,  a 
kind  of  death  in  life,  unless  tranquillity  and  fear¬ 
lessness  and  liberty  are  held  to  be  despicable 
possessions.  Rather,  Epictetus  says,  when  per¬ 
turbation  and  fear  and  servility,  envy  and  jeal¬ 
ousy  and  hatred,  are  gone,  then,  and  then  only, 
is  the  heart  open  to  the  true  philosophic  joy; 
then  the  soul  has  acquired  that  happiness  for 
which  all  men  are  striving,  while  ignorantly  im¬ 
peding  their  own  progress  by  dalliance  with 
the  false  lures  of  pleasure.  This  is  the  ethical  im¬ 
plication  in  the  study  of  physics,  that,  knowing 
the  constitution  of  the  world,  we  should  per¬ 
ceive  the  fatality  which  controls  all  things,  and 
should  obey  the  law  with  alacrity,  as  otherwise 
we  must  obey  it  sullenly. 

The  whole  matter  was  summed  up  by  Epic¬ 
tetus  in  the  four  so-called  procheira ,  or  maxims 

10See  The  Religion  of  Plato  333  ff. 


EPICTETUS 


113 


which  the  philosopher  should  have  at  hand  un¬ 
der  all  the  circumstances  of  life : 

1.  “Lead  me,  O  Zeus,  and  thou,  O  Destiny, 

Where’er  my  lot  is  cast  by  your  decree. 

I  follow  unafraid;  nay,  if  my  will 
Basely  rebelleth,  I  shall  follow  still.” 

2.  “Who  rightly  with  necessity  complies, 

In  things  divine  we  count  him  skilled  and  wise.” 

3.  “Well,  Crito,  if  this  be  the  god’s  will,  so  be  it.” 

4.  “Anytus  and  Meletus  have  power  to  put  me  to  death, 

but  not  to  harm  me.”11 


IV 

\ 

So  far  our  attention  has  been  concentrated  on 
what  is  our  own,  in  our  power,  matters  of  the 
will,  the  use  of  phantasies ;  all  the  rest  is  neither 
good  nor  evil  in  respect  to  our  inner  life,  but  be- 

nThe  first  of  these  four  procheira,  from  Cleanthes,  is  merely  an 
expansion  of  the  Stoic  watchword  “to  live  in  accordance  with 
nature.”  It  was  thus  paraphrased  by  Seneca  {Ep.  cvii,  10) : 
Due,  0  parens  celsique  dominator  poli, 
quocumque  placuit ;  nulla  parendi  mora  est. 
adsum  impiger.  fac  nolle,  comitabor  gemens, 
malusque  patiar,  quod  pati  licuit  bono. 
ducunt  volentem  fata,  nolentem  trahunt. 

The  second  is  from  a  lost  play  by  Euripides.  The  third  and 
fourth  are  condensed  into  epigrammatic  form  from  passages  in 
Plato,  Crito  43d  and  Apology  30c.  The  fourth,  which  is  more  al¬ 
tered  from  the  original  than  the  third,  seems  to  have  been  widely 
current.  It  is  thus  quoted  by  Plutarch  ( apud  Stobaeus,  Eth.  vii, 
32)  and  by  Maximus  Tyr.,  xii,  8a.  Justin  Martyr  ( Apol .  I,  ii,  4) 
uses  it  with  noble  effect  in  his  appeal  against  the  martyrdom  of 
Christians. 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


114 

longs  to  the  sphere  of  indifference,  and  only  by 
preserving  this  distinction  in  our  dogmata  is 
philosophic  calm  attainable.  N evertheless,  it  will 
be  said,  these  indifferent  things  are  about  us, 
and  in  some  way  we  must  preserve  the  dogma 
that  they  are  foreign  to  us  yet  must  play  a  man’s 
part  in  this  life  amongst  them.  How?  The  an¬ 
swer  to  this  question  is  given  in  the  Second  Field 
of  ethics. 

In  a  passage  already  quoted,  having  distin¬ 
guished  the  First  Field,  as  concerned  with  de¬ 
sires  and  aversions,  from  the  Second,  which  has 
to  do  with  the  impulses  to  act  and  not  to  act, 
Epictetus  adds  that  this  Second  Department  is 
“the  sphere  of  what  is  fitting,  of  duties;  for  I 
must  not  be  without  feeling  (apathetic)  like  a 
statue,  but  must  maintain  my  natural  and  ac¬ 
quired  relations,  as  a  religious  man,  as  son, 
brother,  father,  citizen.”  Elsewhere  Epictetus 
states  more  clearly  how  and  when  in  our  philo¬ 
sophic  training  the  transition  should  be  made 
from  the  First  Field  to  the  Second.  “Let  us  con¬ 
fine  ourselves,”  he  says  to  a  pupil  who  was  eager 
to  advance  too  rapidly,  “to  the  First  Depart¬ 
ment,  where  we  have  almost  sensible  demon¬ 
stration  that  we  do  not  apply  our  preconcep¬ 
tions  properly.  Do  you  at  this  moment  desire 


EPICTETUS 


115 

things  possible,  and  possible  for  you?  Why, 
then,  do  you  feel  yourself  hindered  and  per¬ 
turbed  ?  Are  you  not  now  trying  to  avoid  what 
is  inevitable?  Otherwise,  why  do  you  fall  into 
trouble  and  misfortune?  Why  does  a  thing  not 
happen  when  you  desire  it,  and  happen  when 
you  do  not  desire  it,  which  is  the  strongest  proof 
of  inner  perturbation  and  misery?”  Then,  a  lit¬ 
tle  further  on,  speaking  of  the  same  pupil  in  the 
third  person,  he  continues:  “Now,  when  he  has 
worked  at  this  Department  and  made  himself 
master  of  it,  let  him  come  again  and  say  to  me, 
T  wish  to  be  free  from  passion  and  disquiet,  but 
also  I  wish,  as  one  who  has  attained  to  piety  and 
philosophy  and  wise  heedfulness,  to  know  what 
my  specific  duties  are  to  the  gods,  to  my  broth¬ 
ers,  my  fatherland,  to  strangers.’  Enter  then  on 
the  Second  Department,  I  say;  this,  too,  is 
yours.” 

Now,  if  we  examine  these  passages,  we  shall 
see  that  the  whole  matter  really  hinges  on  the 
definition  of  a  few  words — as  indeed  the  Stoics 
of  all  philosophers  were  the  most  given  to  defin¬ 
ing  and  to  drawing  nice  distinctions  in  the  use 
of  terms.  In  the  First  Field  the  application  of 
our  preconceptions  is  ( 1 )  to  things  that  are  our 
own,  ( 2 )  to  desires  and  aversions  in  connection 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


1 16 

with  these,  and  (3)  to  absolute  good  and  evil 
therein.  In  the  Second  Field  the  application 
is  extended  (1)  to  our  relations  ( scheseis )  with 
things  foreign,  (2)  to  our  impulses  to  act  and 
not  to  act  ( hormai  and  aphormai )  in  these  rela¬ 
tions,  and  (3)  to  the  perception  of  our  duty  and 
of  what  is  fitting  ( kathekon )  in  such  actions.12 
In  the  meaning  of  these  three  terms — relations, 
impulses  to  act,  duties — is  contained  the  law  of 
conduct. 

As  for  material  conditions,  such  as  health  and 
riches,  these  may  rightly  be  the  objects  of  our 
activity  in  so  far  as  they  are  preferred  ( proeg - 
mena)  above  their  contraries;  to  this  extent  the 
Stoic  will  compromise  with  the  common  instinct 
of  mankind.  But,  while  preferred,  these  things 
are  still  indifferent  in  the  sense  that,  though  we 
may  work  for  them,  we  must  not  suffer  our  peace 
and  happiness  in  any  degree  to  depend  ulti¬ 
mately  on  our  success  or  failure.  Nor  should  the 
pursuit  of  such  things  be  permitted  to  interfere 


isMr.  Matheson  and  other  recent  scholars  avoid  “duty”  as  a  trans¬ 
lation  of  kathekon,  since  it  “suggests  a  conflict  which  is  not  im¬ 
plied  in  the  word.”  No  doubt  the  connotation  of  “duty”  has  been 
changed  by  the  Christian  sense  of  a  conflict  between  the  will  of 
God  and  the  will  of  man;  but  on  the  other  hand  such  words  as 
“fitting”  and  “proper”  miss  the  sense  of  obligation  to  a  divine 
law,  which  is  certainly  strong  in  Epictetus’  use  of  kathekon.  On 
the  whole  I  regard  “duty”  as  our  nearest  English  equivalent. 


EPICTETUS 


117 

with  the  religious  and  social  obligations  imposed 
on  us  by  our  nature. 

All  men,  Epictetus  says,  and  repeats  with 
noble  insistence,  are  the  sons  of  one  God  and  are 
thus  related  among  themselves  as  children  in  one 
family ;  they  are  fellow-citizens  of  the  one  great 
City  of  God,  which  is  the  world ;  and  so  it  is  fit¬ 
ting,  it  is  their  duty  we  may  say,  to  act  towards 
God  as  towards  a  father  and  towards  one  an¬ 
other  as  towards  brothers  and  fellow-citizens, 
and  to  check  any  impulse  to  act  otherwise.  Man 
is  by  nature  a  religious  being,  whose  first  duty 
is  to  worship  the  universal  Father  and  Creator 
and  Ruler;  and  he  is  a  social  being,  whose  sec¬ 
ond  duty  is  so  to  play  his  part  in  the  common¬ 
wealth  that  peace  and  concord  and  good  will 
may  be  preserved.  On  these  two  commandments, 
the  Stoic  might  have  said,  hang  all  the  law  and 
the  prophets.  They  are  summed  up  in  the  fa¬ 
mous  phrase  “to  live  in  accordance  with  nature.” 

But  in  this  city  of  the  world  there  are  various 
things  to  do,  many  places  to  fill,  many  different 
associations  to  maintain.  One  man  is  set  to  rule, 
another  to  serve ;  one  to  trade,  another  to  teach ; 
one  to  marry,  another  to  live  without  home  or 
hearth.  To  each  man  there  are  the  narrower  re¬ 
lations  to  his  particular  city,  to  father,  brother, 


w 


■ 


n8  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

wife,  children,  friends,  strangers;  and  in  each 
case  he  must  act  accordingly.  The  directions 
given  are  not  very  definite,  you  say;  for  the 
question  is  still  left  open  how  specifically  we  are 
to  meet  these  obligations.  And,  in  fact,  Epicte¬ 
tus  has  few  definite  rules  to  offer.  In  the  tenth 
chapter  of  the  second  book,  after  stating  in  gen¬ 
eral  terms  that  the  duty  of  a  man  is  to  act  as  a 
being  distinguished  from  the  lower  animals  by 
the  possession  of  a  rational  will,  and  that  the 
duty  of  a  citizen  is  never  to  think  of  himself  as 
solitary  but  always  as  a  member  of  organized 
society,  of  a  son  to  show  obedience,  of  a  brother 
to  display  a  spirit  of  kindly  concession — still  not 
very  specific  rules,  you  will  say — he  adds :  “N ext, 
if  you  belong  to  a  city  council,  remember  that  you 
are  a  councillor ;  if  young,  that  you  are  young ; 
if  old,  that  you  are  old ;  if  a  father,  that  you  are 
a  father.  For  each  of  these  names ,  if  'properly 
considered ,  suggests  the  acts  appropriate  to  it.” 
The  inference  would  be  that  there  is  no  need  to 
search  over-curiously  into  the  particular  duties 
of  life,  for  these  have  been  discovered  and  suffi¬ 
ciently  elaborated  for  us  by  the  common  experi¬ 
ence  of  the  race ;  they  are  embodied  in  the  very 
words  we  use ;  and  as  in  worship  it  is  well  to  con¬ 
form  to  tradition  and  the  custom  of  the  State,  so 


EPICTETUS 


119 

in  the  various  relations  of  man  to  man  the  voice 
of  wisdom  bids  us  to  put  away  conceit  ( oiesis ) 
and  humble  one’s  self  to  the  acceptance  of  what 
has  been  tried  and  found  salutary.13 

If  there  is  originality  in  this  branch  of  the 
Stoic  ethics  it  is  in  the  change  from  the  Aristo¬ 
telian  method  of  defining  virtues  by  some  rule 
of  measure  in  the  activities  themselves  to  this 
consideration  of  right  conduct  as  determined  by 
man’s  relations  with  other  men.  Here,  as  in  other 
respects,  Stoicism  holds  a  curious  halfway  posi¬ 
tion  between  paganism  and  Christianity.  One 
step  was  yet  to  be  taken:  the  change  from  the 
abstract  sense  of  relationship  to  the  concrete 
emotion — love  to  God  and  to  man  as  prescribed 
in  the  Golden  Rule — which  underlies  and  vivi¬ 
fies  all  these  relations.  Yet  in  another  direction, 
as  we  shall  see,  the  Stoic  movement,  so  far  as  it 
remained  true  to  its  naturalistic  origins,  was  un¬ 


i3This  statement  may  seem  to  be  contradicted  by  the  fact  that,  in 
their  passion  for  distinguishing  and  defining,  some  of  the  Stoics 
discussed  particular  problems  of  ethics  in  a  manner  which  pointed 
the  way  to  the  scholastic  science  of  casuistry.  No  doubt  Stoicism 
is  inconsistent  here  as  elsewhere,  but  this  is  to  be  observed:  the 
casuistical  method  was  introduced  by  Panaetius  and  Posidonius 
— and  so  passed  on  to  Cicero — as  a  defence  against  the  attacks 
of  Carneades,  and  is  not  inherent  in  Stoicism  (cf.  Schmekel, 
p.  368).  An  examination  of  the  passages'  given  by  Bonhoffer  (II, 
201  ff.)  will  show  that  Epictetus,  at  least,  uses  <rx<?<ms  as  if  their 
meaning  and  obligations  were  conveyed  immediately  in  the  6vo- 
fxara.  For  the  appeal  to  avv^deLa,  custom,  convention,  against  Pyr- 
rhonist  and  Academic,  see  Discourses  I,  xxvii,  15. 


120 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


dermining  the  very  basis  of  morality  in  the  great 
tradition  of  Platonism  and  Christianity. 


V 

In  a  way,  the  Stoic  division  of  ethics  into  these 
two  Fields,  or  Departments,  is  no  more  than  a 
clear  recognition  of  the  double  character  of  mo¬ 
rality  that  runs  all  through  the  Greek  Tradi¬ 
tion.  Plato  first  developed  the  idea,  particularly 
in  his  analysis  of  the  virtues  in  The  Republic ■, 
where  he  assigns  specific  spheres  of  activity  to 
wisdom,  bravery,  and  temperance,  and  identifies 
j  ustice  with  the  compelling  force  behind  all  these 
various  activities.  And  this  distinction,  in  one 
form  or  another,  was  carried  on  by  the  later 
schools.14  But  in  the  Stoic  scheme  the  discrimi¬ 
nation  at  first  sight  may  seem  harsh,  even  re¬ 
pulsive,  and  at  the  same  time  obscure — harsh, 
owing  to  the  sharp  assignment  of  good  and  evil 


14I  have  discussed  this  distinction  in  Platonism  97-113.  It  seems 
to  have  been  first  sharply  defined  by  Aristo  (see  Arnim  I,  p. 
85).  A  few  further  references  to  the  continuation  in  the  later 
schools  may  be  given;  Aristotle,  Eth.  Nic.  II,  vi,  15,  17;  VI,  ix, 
7 ;  X,  viii,  3  (with  Stewart’s  notes) ;  Philo  Judaeus,  Leg.  All.  I, 
63  ff. ;  Clemens  Alex.,  Strom.  I,  xx,  97 ;  Chrysostom,  In  Mat.  96  b, 
189b;  Socrates,  Ec.  Hist.  IV,  xxiii.  Even  the  Epicureans  draw  a 
like  distinction  between  the  ataraxy  of  a  soul  which  possesses 
itself,  and  the  popular  “justice”  which  implies  conformity  for 
the  sake  of  safety.  Only  the  sceptics  of  the  Pyrrhonic  school  re¬ 
ject  the  distinction  absolutely. 


EPICTETUS 


121 


exclusively  to  the  First  Field,  whereas  all  the 
objects  of  activity  in  the  Second  Field  are  de¬ 
nominated  indifferent ;  obscure,  because  the  law 
of  absolute  morality  does  somehow  extend  down 
into  this  region  of  indifference  and  because  the 
command  to  live  in  accord  with  nature  is  equally 
operative  in  both  Fields,  “nature”  being  in  one 
sense  the  rational  will  that  distinguishes  man  as 
man  and  in  another  sense  the  sum  total  of  man’s 
relations  to  the  world.  Yet,  however  paradoxical 
the  Stoics  may  be  otherwise,  they  are  really  not 
inconsistent  here,  as  may  be  proved  by  the  kind 
of  illustrations  constantly  recurring  in  Epic¬ 
tetus.  Take  the  supreme  test  of  character,  death. 
Now  death,  in  the  Stoic  system,  must  be  held  a 
matter  of  complete  indifference,  in  itself  neither 
good  nor  bad,  for  the  reason  that  it  is  something 
over  which  we  have  no  control,  and  which  as  a 
consequence  cannot  be  reckoned  as  ours.  Never¬ 
theless,  the  threat  of  death  stirs  in  the  mind  an 
impulse  to  act  or  not  to  act,  and  the  action  suit¬ 
able  to  the  conditions  is  our  duty,  our  kathekon. 
There  is  responsibility  here.  Yet  at  the  same 
time  our  acts  themselves  are  still  in  a  manner  in¬ 
different  in  so  far  as  they  can  be  predetermined 
by  no  fixed  canon  but  must  vary  with  circum¬ 
stances  ;  it  may  be  fitting  to  face  death  unflinch- 


122 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


ingly,  or,  under  other  circumstances,  it  may  be 
our  duty  to  follow  the  impulse  to  avoid  death. 
So  far  we  are  in  the  Second  Field,  which  has  to 
do  with  the  experimental  rules  of  practical  eth¬ 
ics.  We  enter  into  the  realm  of  absolute  moral¬ 
ity,  passing  to  the  First  Field,  when  we  consider, 
not  our  specific  conduct  in  regard  to  this  death, 
not  the  impulse  to  act  or  to  refrain  from  action, 
but  the  telos,  or  end,  which  lies  behind  and  be¬ 
yond  all  activity,  and  which  concerns  what  the 
Stoics  call  the  desires  and  aversions  of  the  soul. 
However  we  act,  whatever  the  event,  our  desire 
and  our  aversion  must  be  separated  from  the  act 
and  the  event,  and  this  absolutely,  for  the  rea¬ 
son  that  the  thing  itself,  death  or  life,  is  indif¬ 
ferent. 

Or  take  one  of  the  common  relations  of  life.  I 
am  father,  brother,  son,  husband,  friend  to  such 
a  one,  and  he  or  she  is  related  to  me  correspond¬ 
ingly.  In  the  very  name  of  that  bond  I  see  the 
obligations  under  which  I  am  laid  if  I  am  to  live 
in  harmony  with  my  nature  as  a  human  being. 
But  at  the  same  time  that  person,  whether  son 
or  brother,  in  himself  is  something  foreign,  not- 
mine,  in  so  far  as  I  have  no  control  over  him  and 
am  not  responsible  for  his  actions  to  me.  Being 
foreign,  he  is  a  thing  indifferent,  in  so  far  as  his 


EPICTETUS 


123 

actions  may  make  no  difference  in  my  conduct, 
or  at  least  in  my  recognition  of  duty  towards 
him.  What  if  he  is  unkind,  grasping,  unfilial, 
must  I  therefore  lose  my  humanity  and  fail  in 
my  obligations?  Moreover,  he  is  a  thing  for¬ 
eign,  not-mine,  by  the  fact  that  I  have  no  power 
to  retain  him ;  he  is  mortal  and  may  die ;  he  may 
go  on  a  journey  and  so  be  lost  to  me.  And  in  that 
sense  also  he  is  a  thing  indifferent,  because  the 
good  and  ill  of  my  being  must  not  depend  on  his 
presence,  and  my  desires  and  aversions,  in  the 
citadel  of  the  will,  must  be  free  of  any  relation. 
If  he  leaves  me,  as  things  mortal  have  a  way  of 
leaving,  my  desire  shall  not  be  attached  to  him, 
nor  my  peace  broken,  nor  my  liberty  infringed, 
nor  my  submission  to  the  divine  will  imperiled. 

W e  touch  here  a  mystery,  and  the  frank,  some¬ 
times  petulant,  expression  of  an  obscure  truth 
has  brought  ill  repute  to  the  Stoics  not  always 
undeserved.  So  strong  was  their  conviction  of 
the  ultimate  independence  of  our  will,  our  de¬ 
sire  and  aversion,  upon  any  of  these  external 
relations,  that  they  were  wont  to  clothe  their  be¬ 
lief  in  words  unnecessarily  vehement.  Suppose 
your  friend  dies,  says  Epictetus ;  shall  you  there¬ 
fore  sit  and  bewail?  Shall  you  forget  that  he  was 
born  a  mortal  and  subject  to  death ?  II  the  pot  is 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


124 

broken  in  which  you  boil  your  meat,  do  you  not 
send  to  the  market  and  buy  another?  So  be  it  in 
your  friendship .- — Or,  shall  you  stake  your  soul’s 
peace  on  the  little  son  you  love  so  dearly  ?  What 
harm  if,  when  you  kiss  him,  you  murmur,  “To¬ 
morrow  you  will  die”? — But  I  must  go  away, 
you  say,  and  my  mother  will  grieve  when  she 
does  not  see  me.  That  is  her  affair,  not  yours. 
Are  you  responsible  because  she  will  not  learn 
the  lesson  of  philosophy?  Your  own  sorrow  you 
may  check  absolutely,  for  it  belongs  to  you ;  an¬ 
other’s  sorrow  you  shall  endeavour  to  assuage 
so  far  as  may  be  lawful,  not  absolutely.  Other¬ 
wise  you  will  be  fighting  against  God,  and  array¬ 
ing  yourself  against  His  conduct  of  the  universe. 

These  are  not  pretty  sayings,  let  us  admit; 
but  they  should  not  be  misunderstood.  Epicte¬ 
tus  did  not  mean  to  root  out  the  natural  affec¬ 
tions  which  are  so  beautifully  expressed  by  the 
word  philostorgia.  One  of  his  finest  chapters  is 
that  in  which  he  rebukes  a  father  who  has  run 
away  from  a  sick  daughter  because  he  could  not 
endure  the  sight  of  her  suffering.  “Suppose  her 
mother  and  her  attendant  also  showed  their  love 
like  you  by  running  away,”  Epictetus  rejoins 
•indignantly;  “was  it  right  that  the  child  shoidd 
be  left  desolate  and  helpless  because  of  the  great 


EPICTETUS 


12  5 

affection  of  you  its  parents  and  of  those  about 
it?”  No,  this  Phrygian  slave,  who  was  much 
alone  in  the  world,  and  who  did  not  shirk  the 
harder  doctrines  of  his  school,  was  not  in  his 
heart  callous  to  the  softer  ties  of  humanity,  and 
there  is  a  fund  of  tenderness  under  the  rough 
language  of  his  teaching.  The  critic  who  says 
that  “Stoics  made  solitude  in  the  heart  and 
called  it  peace”15  has  turned  a  neat  epigram,  but 
he  has  not  told  the  whole  truth. 

Yet,  though  it  is  a  sad  misreading  of  the  text, 
to  think  of  a  typical  Stoic  like  Epictetus  as  de¬ 
void  of  tenderness  and  natural  affection,  it  is 
true  that  the  deeper  feeling  of  his  mind  is  that 
of  the  Hindu  epigrammatist : 

“These  dear  companionships  are  not  for  ever; 

The  wheel  of  being  without  end 
Still  whirls :  if  on  the  way  some  meet  and  sever, — 
’Tis  brother,  mother,  father,  friend.” 

It  is  true  that  the  relations  of  life  are  things 
ephemeral,  foreign,  and  at  the  last  uncontrol¬ 
lable,  whereas  inner  peace,  steadfastness  of  con¬ 
tent,  compliance  to  the  will  of  God,  are  our  own; 
not  any  power,  not  God  Himself,  can  deprive 
us  of  the  liberty  of  choosing  what  we  will.  And 


isT.  R.  Glover,  The  Conflict  of  Religions  in  the  Early  Roman 
Empire  67. 


126 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


when  conflict  arises,  as  sometimes  it  is  forced 
upon  us,  between  what  is  ours  to  choose  and  our 
attachment  to  what  is  not  ours,  when  the  bonds 
of  love  are  broken  by  accident  or  separation  or 
death,  when  the  perversity  of  another  renders 
the  mutual  ties  of  life  impossible,  then  the  Stoic 
will  say  that  these  things  are  indifferent  and  that 
a  man  must  withdraw  into  the  citadel  of  his  own 
soul  where  his  real  treasure  of  good  is  to  be  de¬ 
fended.  Where  good  and  evil  are,  there  finally  is 
our  responsibility,  and  there  happiness.  And  so, 
putting  this  truth  in  compact  language,  the  Sto¬ 
ic  will  declare:  “It  is  better  that  thy  son  should 
be  evil  than  that  thou  shouldst  be  unhappy.”16 
Does  that  sound  harsh,  inhuman,  paradoxical? 
It  may  sound  so,  yet  Christ  could  pronounce  a 
similar  law  in  even  sterner  words.  When  one 
said  to  him  that  his  mother  and  brothers  were 
without,  desiring  to  speak  to  him,  thinking  that 
he  was  beside  himself,  what  was  his  answer? 
“Who  is  my  mother?  and  who  are  my  brethren?” 
At  another  time,  when  the  multitude  was  fol¬ 
lowing  him,  he  turned  upon  them,  and  cried :  “If 
any  man  come  unto  me,  and  hate  not  his  father, 
and  mother,  and  wife,  and  children,  and  breth¬ 
ren,  and  sisters,  yea,  and  his  own  life  also,  he 


16 Manual  12:  K peirrou  8b  rbv  7 raida  KaKov  elvai  fj  ab  Ka-KobaL/iova 


EPICTETUS 


127 

cannot  be  my  disciple.”  Those  are  bitter  sayings 
that  have  caused  many  to  wince  and  many  to  be 
offended ;  but  they  cannot  be  evaded,  nor  is  there 
any  contradiction,  for  one  who  knows  the  law 
of  religion,  between  them  and  the  truly  Chris¬ 
tian  sentences  in  the  Epistle  of  St.John,  “Who¬ 
so  ver  hateth  his  brother  is  a  murderer,”  and  “If 
a  man  say,  I  love  God,  and  hateth  his  brother, 
he  is  a  liar.”  I  would  not  have  it  implied  that  I 
see  no  difference  between  the  Christian  goal  of 
salvation  and  the  Stoic  pursuit  of  safety,  or  be¬ 
tween  the  Christian  love  for  one’s  neighbour  and 
the  Stoic  sense  of  duty  in  the  relations  of  life ; 
there  is  in  fact  a  profound  difference.  But,  so 
far  as  it  goes,  the  Stoic  distinction  between  the 
First  Field  of  ethics  which  teaches  that  absolute 
good  and  evil  lie  in  the  right  disposition  of  the 
will  and  bids  a  man  seek  first  his  own  happiness, 
and  the  Second  Field  which  embraces  the  obli¬ 
gations  to  other  men, — so  far  as  it  goes  this  dis¬ 
tinction  is  in  the  direction  that  was  to  be  taken 
by  Christianity.  As  I  said,  we  touch  here  a  mys¬ 
tery. 

Looking  to  the  Orient,  one  is  struck  by  a  cur¬ 
ious,  almost  a  haunting,  similarity  of  this  Stoic 
mystery  with  the  practical  wisdom  of  India  as 
summed  up  in  the  Bhagavad  Gita.  No  doubt  the 


128 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


difference  here  is  as  great  as  the  resemblance, 
perhaps  at  the  last  analysis  even  greater.  To  the 
Hindu  the  world  was  not  the  purposed  handi¬ 
work  of  God  in  any  such  way  as  it  appeared  to 
the  Occidental  philosopher ;  it  was  rather  a  mi¬ 
rage  of  illusion  which  offered  no  place  for  Provi¬ 
dence  or  for  submission  to  the  divine  will  or  for 
adjustment  of  the  human  will  to  the  ordered 
progress  of  physical  events.  And  on  the  other 
hand  the  eternal  reality  of  the  Atman  is  quite 
lacking  to  the  Stoic  distinction  between  what  is 
mine  and  what  is  not  mine.  Nevertheless,  in  the 
application  of  these  two  orders  of  ideas  East 
and  West  come  together  in  a  manner  which 
must  strike  the  imagination.  In  the  East  this 
application  is  expressed  in  the  law  of  works  and 
detachment : 

“Whosoever  abandoneth  all  desires,  and  goeth  his  way 
without  craving, 

Who  saith  not  This  is  mine !  This  is  I!  he  cometh  unto 
peace. 

“Therefore  without  attachment  ever  lay  hand  to  thy  pe¬ 
culiar  work, 

For  he  that  doeth  his  work  without  attachment,  he  at- 
taineth  the  Supreme. 

“If  all  the  doings  of  a  man  are  devoid  of  the  persuasion  of 
desire, 


EPICTETUS 


129 

If  all  his  works  are  passed  through  the  fires  of  know¬ 
ledge,  then  will  they  who  understand  call  him  wise.”17 

Now  it  will  be  seen  at  a  glance,  I  think,  that 
these  couplets  give  as  it  were  a  summary  of  the 
Stoic  division  of  ethics  into  the  First  and  Sec¬ 
ond  Fields.  The  duties  of  a  man  to  the  world, 
the  obligations  of  his  natural  and  acquired  re¬ 
lations,  are  the  Hindu  works.  And  as  these  works 
in  the  Hindu  scheme  are  to  be  carried  out  with¬ 
out  attachment  to  the  subjects  of  obligation  and 
without  ultimate  concern  for  results,  so  pre¬ 
cisely  is  it  with  the  Stoic.  Here,  too,  the  duties 
of  our  position  must  be  fulfilled  somehow  with¬ 
out  encroaching  on  our  freedom  from  attach¬ 
ment  (prospatheia) ,  and  the  kindly  affections 
must  be  maintained  without  marring  the  soul’s 
private  possession  of  apathy.  Somehow  the  de¬ 
sire  and  aversion  of  the  will  must  be  removed 
from  our  activities  and  their  consequences  to 
the  sphere  of  absolute  good  and  evil.  Only  so, 
Hindu  and  Stoic  alike  declare,  is  the  path  open 
to  peace  and  liberty  and  happiness,  only  so  can 
the  law  of  the  world  be  maintained.  “It  is  diffi¬ 
cult,”  Epictetus  says,  “to  unite  and  combine 

i^For  a  fuller  discussion  of  the  Hindu  creed  I  may  refer  to 
Shelburne  Essays  VI,  43  ff.  Mr.  Edwyn  Bevan  has  drawn  atten¬ 
tion  to  the  parallel  between  Epictetus  and  the  Bhagavad  Gita  in 
his  Stoics  and  Sceptics  77  ff. 


130 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


these  two  things — the  care  of  one  who  devotes 
himself  to  the  particular  circumstances  of  life 
and  the  settled  peace  of  one  who  disregards 
them — yet  not  impossible.  Otherwise  happiness 
would  be  impossible.”  Here,  as  elsewhere,  what 
is  dark  and  seemingly  paradoxical  in  theory 
may  be  illuminated  and  simplified  by  its  per¬ 
sonification,  so  to  speak,  in  a  human  character. 
Those  who  are  familiar  with  the  life  of  Marcus 
Aurelius  have  seen  the  union  of  Stoic  aloofness 
with  a  tenderness  towards  all  natural  relations 
carried  out  in  almost  perfect  harmony.  Whether 
the  Emperor’s  apathy  did  actually  contain  the 
elements  of  a  positive  happiness,  is  another  ques¬ 
tion. 

In  the  West,  apart  from  the  immediate  teach¬ 
ings  of  Christ,  the  affiliation  of  this  part  of  Sto¬ 
icism  is  social  rather  than  religious,  and  shows 
itself  in  the  problem  of  the  individual  and  the 
community,  which  troubled  the  eighteenth  and 
nineteenth  centuries  and  has  not  ceased  to  vex 
the  drowsy  ear  of  the  present  age.  The  antinomy 
goes  back  to  Antisthenes,  the  first  Cynic,  who 
in  some  way  not  clear  to  us  combined  a  harsh 
egotism  with  the  doctrine  of  sympathy.  From 
Antisthenes  the  antinomy  passed  to  the  Stoics, 
with  whom  it  took  the  form  of  conflict  between 


EPICTETUS 


131 

self-interest,  culminating  in  apathy,  and  a  sense 
of  fellowship  ( koinonia )  which,  if  not  exactly 
sympathy,  resulted  in  practice  very  much  like 
it.  On  the  one  hand  the  Stoics  insisted  unwaver¬ 
ingly  that  the  highest  good  for  a  man  must  be 
identical  with  his  own  advantage,  while  on  the 
other  hand  they  were  equally  insistent  on  the  fact 
that  men  are  bound  together  in  one  community 
as  the  children  of  the  same  God  and  must  con¬ 
cern  themselves  with  their  brothers’  welfare. 
Fellowship  is  the  strong  law  of  nature,  and  if, 
like  Epicurus,  we  deny  the  law,  yet  nature  draws 
us  to  her  will,  reluctant  and  groaning.  The  recon¬ 
ciliation  between  these  contradictories  was  made 
by  Epictetus  in  a  passage  whose  influence  is  still 
felt,  though  its  meaning  may  have  been  strange¬ 
ly  perverted : 

“This  is  not  mere  selfishness:  for  it  is  natural 
to  man,  as  to  other  creatures,  to  do  everything 
for  his  own  sake ;  for  even  the  sun  does  everything 
for  its  own  sake,  and  in  a  word  so  does  Zeus  him¬ 
self.  But  when  he  (Zeus)  would  be  called  'The 
Bain-giver’  and  'Fruit-giver’  and  'Father  of 
men  and  Gods,’  you  see  that  he  cannot  win  these 
names  or  do  these  works  unless  he  does  some 
good  to  the  world  at  large :  and  in  general  Zeus 
has  so  created  the  nature  of  the  rational  animal, 
that  he  can  attain  nothing  good  for  himself,  un- 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


132 

less  he  contributes  some  service  to  the  commun¬ 
ity.  So  it  turns  out  that  to  do  everything  for 
one’s  own  sake  is  not  unsocial.  For  what  do  you 
expect?  Do  you  expect  a  man  to  hold  aloof 
from  himself  and  his  own  interest?  No:  we  can¬ 
not  ignore  the  one  principle  of  action  which 
governs  all  things — to  be  at  unity  with  them¬ 
selves.” 

Fellowship  thus  according  to  the  Stoic  creed 
is  a  part,  an  essential  yet  subordinate  part,  of 
self-interest.  Ultimately  a  man’s  good,  what  he 
desires  and  must  pursue,  is  that  which  he  re¬ 
gards  as  advantageous  to  himself.  But  this  good 
is  placed  in  the  realm  of  the  will  and  the  reason : 
man  by  nature  is  endowed  with  these  faculties 
as  his  distinctive  element,  and  his  happiness  as 
well  as  his  duty  is  to  live  in  accordance  with  his 
nature  as  a  being  so  endowed.  By  nature  also 
he  is  born  one  of  a  community  of  beings  having 
the  same  endowment,  and  it  is  in  accordance 
with  his  nature  as  a  being  so  endowed  to  treat 
all  men  as  fellows  in  the  spirit,  with  generosity, 
helpful  consideration,  justice.  But,  it  is  impor¬ 
tant  to  add,  as  pleasure  and  the  utility  concerned 
with  pleasure  are  not  factors  of  his  own  real 
good,  so  they  form  no  part,  at  least  no  essential 
part,  of  the  bond  of  fellowship ;  and,  secondly, 
though  our  obligation  cannot  be  annulled  by 


EPICTETUS 


133 

the  acts  of  another,  onr  sympathy  with  another 
ceases  as  soon  as,  and  so  far  as,  he  in  his  turn 
ceases  to  act  as  a  reasonable  and  social  being. 

Now,  whatever  may  be  thought  of  this  creed, 
and  however  we  may  hold  that  it  solves,  or  fails 
to  solve,  the  antithesis  of  the  individual  and  the 
community,  certainly  the  modern  attitude  to¬ 
wards  the  question,  though  its  origin  goes  back 
to  Stoicism,  is  radically  different  from  that  of 
Epictetus. 

The  modern  movement  begins,  or  at  least  first 
becomes  important,  with  Shaftesbury,18  whose 
life  and  manner  of  thought,  as  he  believed,  were 
regulated  by  a  minute  study  of  Epictetus,  while 
in  fact  he  was  introducing  into  philosophy  a 
spirit  quite  foreign  to  his  teacher.  To  begin 
with,  from  the  Stoic  principle  of  reason  and  will 
Shaftesbury  has  removed  the  range  of  ethics 
entirely  to  the  emotions.  In  place  of  the  ancient 
command  to  acquire  right  dogmata,  his  precept 
is :  “Be  persuaded  that  wisdom  is  more  from  the 
heart  than  from  the  head;  feel  goodness,  and 

asFor  the  earlier  revival  of  Stoicism  at  the  Renaissance  see 
F.  Strowski,  Pascal  et  son  temps,  chap.  ii.  But  the  peculiarly 
modern  tone,  with  its  blend  of  Epicureanism,  must  be  attributed 
in  the  main  to  Shaftesbury,  whose  influence  through  the  eight¬ 
eenth  century  was  immense.  For  his  devotion  to  Epictetus,  see 
the  Philosophical  Regimen  edited  by  Benjamin  Rand. 


134  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

you  will  see  all  things  fair  and  good.”19  The  key¬ 
word  for  Shaftesbury  is  not  dogmata  but  the 
“affections.”  These  he  divides  into  natural  (or 
public)  and  selfish  (or  private),  and  then  sets 
them  side  by  side  as  essentially  hostile  one  to 
the  other.  “Whatsoever,  therefore,”  he  says,  “is 
done  which  happens  to  be  advantageous  to  the 
species,  through  an  affection  merely  towards 
self-good,  does  not  imply  any  more  goodness  in 
the  creature  than  as  the  affection  itself  is  good. 
Let  him,  in  any  particular,  act  ever  so  well;  if, 
at  the  bottom,  it  be  that  selfish  affection  alone 
which  moves  him,  he  is  in  himself  still  vicious. 
Nor  can  any  creature  be  considered  otherwise, 
when  the  passion  towards  self-good,  though  ever 
so  moderate,  is  his  real  motive  in  the  doing  that 
to  which  a  natural  affection  for  his  kind  ought 
by  right  to  have  inclined  him.”  Now  certainly, 
whatever  we  may  think  of  this  doctrine,  it  is  a 
radical  departure  from  the  Stoic  attempt,  as 
seen  in  the  quotation  just  given  from  Epictetus, 
to  derive  the  natural  duties  ( kathekonta )  from 

i9This  and  most  of  the  following  quotations  are  taken  from 
Thomas  Fowler’s  Shaftesbury  and  Hutcheson.  Dr.  Fowler  gives 
an  excellent  summary  of  Shaftesbury’s  views;  but  it  is  hard  to 
understand  how,  after  showing  the  true  weakness  of  Shaftes¬ 
bury’s  ethical  mixture  (p.  92),  he  should  add  (p.  98) :  “It  would 
not  be  too  much  to  say  that  there  is  no  modern  writer  whose 
views  on  morals  approximate  so  closely  to  the  classical  way  of 
thinking  on  these  subjects  as  his.” 


EPICTETUS 


13? 

one  ultimate  principle  of  self-interest.  And  the 
practical  consequences  of  this  departure  carry 
us  very  far.  Instead  of  a  rigid  law  of  subordina¬ 
tion  extending  from  right  dogmata  to  a  right 
understanding  of  what  is  ours  and  thence  to  a 
right  disposition  towards  what  is  not  ours,  we 
are  to  discover  a  rule  of  conduct  in  the  balance 
of  public  and  private  affections,  or  between  the 
feelings  of  sympathy  and  egotism.20  If  there  is 
any  governing  principle  behind  this  mechanical 
balance,  it  is  not  the  Stoic  reason  or  will  but  a 
kind  of  instinctive  taste  or  aesthetic  sense,  which 
is  affected  by  harmony  or  disharmony  of  char¬ 
acter  just  as  it  is  by  proportion  or  disproportion 
in  a  work  of  art.  “And  this,  after  all,  the  most 
natural  beauty  in  the  world  is  honesty  and  moral 
truth;  for  all  beauty  is  truth,”  Shaftesbury  says, 
in  a  vein  of  dubious  Platonism  that  was  to  be 
echoed  by  Keats.  Thus  the  Benevolent  Theory 
of  Ethics  merges  insensibly  into  a  pleasant  and 
easy  kind  of  aesthetic  hedonism  as  far  removed 

from  the  Porch  as  it  is  from  the  Academy.  In 

•/ 

this  facile  blend  of  Stoicism  and  Epicureanism 
there  is  no  place  for  that  strenuous  discipline  on 
which  Epictetus  insisted,  as  one  might  say,  in 

2oShaftesbury  may  have  got  this  notion  of  a  balance  between 
egotism  and  sympathy  from  Panaetius  through  Cicero  (see 
Schmekel,  Die  mittlere  Stoa  220,  369) ;  he  did  not  get  it  from 
Epictetus. 


136  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

season  and  out  of  season;  instead  we  have  the 
beginning  of  the  new  theory  of  natural  good¬ 
ness  and  moral  laissez-faire  which  has  been  the 
dominant  note  in  modern  ethics  and  sociology 
from  that  day  to  this.  To  Epictetus  wisdom  and 
goodness  were  to  be  attained,  if  at  all,  by  the  la¬ 
bour  of  a  lifetime ;  to  Shaftesbury  goodness  ap¬ 
pears  so  natural  that  it  almost  requires  labour  to 
be  vicious:  “Nor  can  anything  besides  art  and 
strong  endeavour,  with  long  practice  and  medi¬ 
tation,  overcome  such  a  natural  prevention  or 
presupposition  of  the  mind  in  favour  of  this  mor¬ 
al  distinction  [between  the  amiability  of  virtue 
and  the  deformity  of  vice].”21  As  in  Platonism, 
so  it  was  in  Stoicism,  and  so  it  will  be  in  Chris¬ 
tianity, — the  first  step  towards  an  understand¬ 
ing  of  the  doctrine  must  be  in  tearing  away  the 
masques  which  conceal  their  true  features.  To 
some  it  may  appear  also  that  the  path  of  wisdom 
points  in  the  same  direction. 

VI 

The  First  Field  of  ethics,  as  we  have  seen,  was 
concerned  with  the  adjustment  of  the  will  to  the 
great  law  of  physics.  The  world  is  a  vast  flux, 
wherein  all  things  are  moving  and  changing  by 

21 Inquiry  I,  iii,  1. 


EPICTETUS 


137 

force  of  necessity  and  all  things,  taken  together, 
are  right,  even  as  they  are  necessary.  It  is  the 
business  of  the  philosopher  to  recognize  that  he 
too  is  a  part  of  this  system,  but  not  the  whole  of 
it,  and  that  his  good  and  evil,  his  happiness  or 
misery,  depend  on  the  recognition  of  this  fact; 
the  world  is  not  his  to  alter  or  control,  hut  it  is  in 
his  power  to  accept,  or  refuse  to  accept,  things 
as  they  are. 

The  Second  Field  had  to  do  with  practical 
conduct,  or  with  the  division  of  philosophy  called 
ethics  in  the  narrower  usage  of  the  word.  Hav¬ 
ing  accepted  the  world  as  not  ours,  and  so  indif¬ 
ferent  to  us,  we  have  still  to  know  how  to  behave 
in  relation  to  outer  things. 

The  Third  Field  applies  to  life  the  division 
of  philosophy  called  logic.  The  earlier  Stoics, 
Chrysippus  especially,  had  developed  the  or¬ 
ganon  of  Aristotle  in  many  directions,  and  had 
much  to  say  about  hypothetical  arguments,  vari¬ 
able  premises,  epichiremes,  enthymemes,  and  the 
rest  of  the  syllogistic  machinery;  all  of  which 
Epictetus  took  over  as  a  part  of  the  philosophic 
discipline,  though  evidently  with  some  reluc¬ 
tance,  and  with  outspoken  irritation  against 
those  who  came  to  him  merely  to  acquire  dexter¬ 
ity  in  debate.  Yet  Epictetus  was  well  aware  of 


138  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

the  importance  of  this  study  at  the  proper  time ; 
and  he  saw  that  it  had  a  double  function.  Nega¬ 
tively  we  need  to  have  our  wits  sharpened  by 
logical  exercise  in  order  that  we  may  be  ready  to 
defend  ourselves  against  the  attacks  of  scepti¬ 
cism  and  may  refute  false  and  misleading  argu¬ 
ments.  But  there  is  a  positive  use  of  logic  also. 
Our  conduct  in  the  Second  Field  in  the  end  must 
be  determined  by  logical  distinctions  and  by  the 
application  of  syllogistic  arguments  to  our  re¬ 
lations;  “for  really,  in  every  circumstance  of 
life,  our  aim  is  to  question  how  the  good  man 
may  fitly  deal  with  it  and  fitly  behave.”  And  the 
use  of  reason  extends  still  higher  into  the  First 
Field,  for,  after  all,  our  attitude  towards  the 
sum  of  things  that  constitute  the  world  will  fol¬ 
low  as  a  kind  of  syllogistic  conclusion  upon  the 
premises  we  accept  in  regard  to  them.  Reason 
in  the  end  is  that  which  makes  all  things  articu¬ 
late  and  complete,  and  life  itself,  unless  it  be 
that  kind  of  unexamined  and  untested  exist¬ 
ence  which  to  Socrates  was  no  life  at  all,  resem¬ 
bles  nothing  so  much  as  a  syllogism  in  practice. 
“In  fact,”  Epictetus  says,  “we  must  behave  in 
life  as  we  do  with  hypothetical  arguments” ;  and 
then  he  illustrates  his  meaning  by  this  curious 
example : 


EPICTETUS 


139 


“  'Let  us  assume  it  is  night.’ 

“  'Granted.’ 

"  'What  follows?  Is  it  day?’ 

"  'No,  for  I  have  already  assented  to  the  as¬ 
sumption  that  it  is  night.’ 

"  ‘Let  us  assume  then  that  you  believe  that  it 
is  night.’ 

“  ‘Granted.’ 

“  ‘Now  believe  that  it  really  is  night.’ 

“  ‘This  does  not  follow  from  the  hypothesis.’ 
So  too  it  is  in  life.  ‘Let  us  assume  that  you 
are  unfortunate.’ 

“  ‘Granted.’ 

“  ‘Are  you  then  unfortunate?’ 

“  ‘Yes.’ 

“  ‘What  then,  are  you  unhappy?’ 

“  ‘Yes.’ 

“  ‘Now  believe  that  you  are  in  the  midst  of 
real  evils.’ 

“  ‘This  does  not  follow  from  the  hypothesis: 
and  Another  (God)  forbids  me.’  ”22 

22 Discourses  I,  xxv.  Plato  also  (see  The  Religion  of  Plato  42) 
bases  his  philosophy  on  an  hypothetical  argument  at  once  cur¬ 
iously  like  and  unlike  this  of  Epictetus.  Plato’s  syllogism  may 
be  paraphrased  as  follows: 

Let  us  assume  that  the  just  man,  appearing  to  be  unjust, 
is  misunderstood  by  men  and  neglected  by  the  gods. 

Granted. 

Then  will  he  not  suffer  all  the  external  consequences  of  in¬ 
justice  in  this  world  with  no  hope  of  recompense  in  the  next? 
Yes. 

What  then,  is  he  in  the  midst  of  real  evils? 

Yes. 

Now,  believe  that  he  is  unhappy. 

This  does  not  follow  from  the  hypothesis;  the  nature  of 
justice  forbids  me. 

Plato  will  admit  that  a  man  may  be  in  the  midst  of  real  evils,  but 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


140 

In  such  a  way  life  presents  itself  to  the  Stoic 
as  offering  a  series  of  hypothetical  propositions, 
to  each  of  which  he  must  assent  or  refuse  to  as¬ 
sent.  And  so  this  Third  Field,  starting  with  the 
dry  bones  of  formal  logic,  brings  us  at  last  to 
that  mysterious  word  Assent  (synkatathesis) , 
in  which  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  whole 
psychology  of  the  Porch  culminates.  Here  is  the 
problem:  What  is  this  act  of  assent?  or,  more 
specifically,  What  is  it  that  assents?  What  is 
that  to  which  it  assents?  Evidently  the  answer 
to  these  questions  will  involve  our  conception  of 
the  Self  and  the  world,  of  personality  and  the 
meaning  of  good  and  evil. 

Now,  at  the  first  blush,  the  Stoic  answer  to 
the  question,  What  is  it  that  assents?  would 
seem  to  present  no  difficulty.  Over  and  over 
again  it  is  said  that  good  and  evil  are  in  the  pro- 
airesis ,  that  this  alone  is  free,  that  this  alone  is 
ours,  and  so  in  a  way  we.  That  sounds  simple 
and  final.  But  is  it?  A  difficulty  arises  when  we 
undertake  to  transfer  the  term  proairesis  to 
English.  We  commonly  translate  it  “will,”  and 
this,  with  proper  reservations,  is  perhaps  the 

will  not  admit  that  he  is  therefore  necessarily  unhappy;  Epicte¬ 
tus  will  admit  that  a  man  may  be  unhappy,  but  will  not  admit 
that  he  is  therefore  in  the  midst  of  real  evils.  That  is  the  gulf 
between  Platonism  and  Stoicism. 


EPICTETUS 


141 

nearest  equivalent  we  have.  But,  taken  abso¬ 
lutely,  our  “will”  is  a  synonym  for  the  Latin 
voluntas ,  rather  than  for  proairesis ;  by  etymol¬ 
ogy  and  usage  the  Greek  word  signifies  rather 
a  mental  process  than  a  dynamic  faculty,  rather 
the  act  of  choosing,  the  act  of  giving  and  with¬ 
holding  assent,  than  that  which  chooses  and  as¬ 
sents.  What  determines  the  act?  What  lies  be¬ 
hind  the  proair esis? 

And  here,  again,  the  step  would  seem  to  be 
easy.  We  are  brought  at  once  to  the  familiar 
catchword  of  Stoicism,  the  hegemonikon ,  or 
Governing  Principle  as  it  is  commonly  trans¬ 
lated,  whose  very  meaning  indicates  the  deter¬ 
mining  power  of  the  will  and  the  agent  in  the 
act  of  choosing.  But,  again,  there  are  difficul¬ 
ties.  Repeatedly  the  command  is  given  to  pre¬ 
serve  the  Governing  Principle  in  accordance 
with  nature,  since  therein  lies  our  good.  What 
is  it  then  that  preserves  and  determines  this  fac¬ 
ulty?  “As  in  walking,”  Epictetus  says  charac¬ 
teristically,  “you  take  care  not  to  tread  on  a 
nail  or  twist  your  foot,  so  take  care  not  to  harm 
your  Governing  Principle.”  What  is  this  “you” 
that  governs  the  governor,  that  guides  the  will, 
that  assents  or  dissents?  It  is  reason,  the  Stoic 
might  reply.  God  Himself,  or  that  subtle  spirit 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


142 

out  of  which  all  the  world  evolves,  is  intelligence, 
knowledge,  pure  reason,  and  man  has  within  him 
a  portion  of  God ;  his  soul  is,  as  it  were,  a  frag¬ 
ment  of  the  divine  reason.  That  is  the  essence  of 
the  Governing  Principle,  right  reason.  The  an¬ 
swer  is  clear  enough,  one  thinks;  but  again  dif¬ 
ficulties  surge  up.  Reason  is  given  us,  it  is  said, 
for  the  purpose  of  using  and  controlling  our  im¬ 
pressions;  but  in  the  same  breath  we  are  in¬ 
formed  that  it  is  itself  a  system  framed  out  of 
impressions  of  one  kind  or  another  (I,  xx,  5) .  It 
is  untrammeled  contemplation;  yet  when  erro¬ 
neous  dogmata  affect  it  concerning  things  good 
and  evil,  there  is  a  necessity  upon  us  to  act  un¬ 
reasonably.  What  is  this  that  determines  the 
reason,  that  governs  the  governor,  that  guides 
the  will,  that  assents  or  dissents?  It  is  rather 
like  the  house  that  Jack  built,  or,  in  the  more 
dignified  language  of  the  schools,  a  recessus  ad 
infinitum. 

Some  light  is  thrown  on  this  vexatious  prob¬ 
lem  in  a  chapter  of  the  Discourses  with  the  un¬ 
promising  title,  “That  we  ought  not  to  be  angry 
with  men :  and  concerning  what  things  are  small 
and  what  are  great  among  men.”  Here  Epicte¬ 
tus  asks  the  question  categorically,  “What  is  the 


EPICTETUS 


H3 

cause  of  our  assenting  to  anything?”  and  pro¬ 
ceeds  to  give  this  answer : 

The  appearance  that  it  is.  To  that  which 
appears  not  to  be  it  is  impossible  to  assent.  Why  ? 
Because  such  is  the  nature  of  the  mind— to  agree 
to  what  is  true,  to  disagree  with  what  is  false, 
to  suspend  judgment  on  things  unknowable 
( adela ) . 

“  ‘What  is  the  proof  of  this?’ 

Feel  ( pathej  be  persuaded,  assent  to  the 
proposition)  now,  if  you  can,  that  it  is  night. 

“  Tt  is  impossible/ 

Put  away  the  feeling  ( apopathe ,  be  dis¬ 
suaded,  dissent  to  the  proposition)  that  it  is  day. 

“  Tt  is  impossible.’ 

Either  feel  or  put  away  the  feeling  that  the 
stars  are  even  in  number. 

“  Tt  is  impossible.’ 

“  When  a  man  assents,  then,  to  what  is  false, 
know  that  he  had  no  wish  to  assent  to  the  false : 
‘for  no  soul  is  robbed  of  the  truth  with  its  own 
consent,’  as  Plato  says,  but  the  false  seemed  to 
him  true.” 

Now  this  necessity  of  our  nature  to  assent  to 
what  appears  a  fact,  a  truth,  extends,  as  the  ar¬ 
gument  goes  on  to  show,  from  the  sphere  of  per¬ 
ception  to  the  sphere  of  action.  Whatever  ob¬ 
ject  appears  to  a  man  good,  that  perforce  he 
desires;  whatever  action  appears  to  him  for  his 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


144 

interest,  that  perforce  he  has  an  impulse  to  carry 
out:  “for  the  measure  to  man  of  all  doing  is 
appearance  ( phainomenon ) To  this  at  last 
come  even  the  great  events  of  history  which  have 
thrown  the  world  into  commotion.  It  was  ap¬ 
pearance  that  caused  Paris  to  run  away  with  the 
wife  of  Menelaus,  appearance  that  drew  PXelen 
to  follow  him;  and  if  it  had  appeared  to  Mene¬ 
laus  a  gain  instead  of  a  loss  to  be  relieved  of  such 
a  woman,  there  would  have  been  no  Iliad  or 
Odyssey — on  so  little  a  thing  depended  effects 
so  vast.  Hence  whatever  happens,  whatever  we 
see  a  man  doing,  we  can  only  say:  “So  it  seemed 
to  him,  such  was  his  dogma.”23 

In  our  search  for  the  source  of  assent  and  re¬ 
sponsibility  we  have  come  a  circle  back  to  the 
dogmata  with  which  the  whole  discussion  of 
ethics  began.  But  these  dogmata,  as  we  now  see 
them,  are  purely  passive,  with  no  element  of 
freedom  in  them,  no  place  for  that  apathy  which 
was  the  aim  of  philosophy,  no  promise  of  secur¬ 
ity  from  the  fatal  pressure  of  the  world.  The 
will  as  a  free  faculty  of  choosing  and  the  Gov- 

zzManual  43:  ’T&Trup9£yyov  yap  i(p’  eicacrTcp  otl  e8o^ev  avrcp.  The 
closing  phrase  here  is  equivalent  to  doyp,a  avrov.  Dogma,  in  fact, 
means  etymologically  not  so  much  an  active  judgment  as  a  pas¬ 
sive  appearance,  a  'phainomenon .  The  Stoic  ethics  end  in  the 
same  confusion  between  active  and  passive  as  that  from  which 
their  physics  began. 


EPICTETUS 


H5 

erning  Principle  have  simply  vanished  away. 
Is  there  then  no  responsibility  in  the  choice  of 
good  and  evil,  no  morality,  no  distinction  be¬ 
tween  mine  and  not-mine,  myself  and  not-my- 
self,  nothing  but  a  dull  mechanic  exercise  of  im¬ 
pressions  ? 

Now,  whatever  else  we  may  think  or  demon¬ 
strate,  we  cannot  get  away  from  the  immediate 
belief  in  a  distinction  between  mine  and  not- 
mine,  myself  and  that  which  is  not  myself.  No 
possible  argument  can  relax  our  hold  on  this 
primary  dogma  of  consciousness;  everything 
may  proceed  from  that  dogma,  nothing  can  ob¬ 
literate  it,  and  therefore  the  Stoics  were  justi¬ 
fied  in  applying  this  distinction  to  the  theory  of 
moral  responsibility. 

It  is  a  fact  that,  considering  the  lives  of  other 
men,  looking  at  that  which  is  not  we,  we  seem 
to  discover  only  passive  determination,  and' no 
choice  or  responsibility  at  all.  Good  men  and 
evil  alike  are  the  playthings  of  circumstance, 
their  character  is  the  product  of  heredity  and 
environment,  their  emotions  and  actions  are  con¬ 
trolled  by  laws  they  did  not  make,  and  so  their 
consequent  happiness  or  misery  is  only  their  al¬ 
lotment  in  the  vast  network  of  fate,  or  chance. 
That  is  what  the  Stoic  had  in  mind  when  he  de- 


146  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

dared  that  “the  measure  to  man  of  all  doing  is 
appearance,”  and  then,  as  putting  a  curb  upon 
the  attempt  to  pry  into  the  moral  responsibility 
of  others,  added,  “It  is  not  possible  for  a  man  to 
follow  what  appears  to  you,  but  only  what  ap¬ 
pears  to  him.  .  .  .  Therefore,  whatever  hap¬ 
pens,  say  to  yourself,  'So  it  seemed  to  him.’  ” 
No  precept  is  more  frequent  in  Epictetus  than 
this,  that  the  motives  and  deeds  of  other  men  are 
not  ours  to  judge,  that  we  should  not  permit 
these  things  to  influence  our  own  sense  of  obli¬ 
gation  to  the  world,  that  we  should  never  find 
fault,  never  give  way  to  anger  or  hatred  or  re¬ 
proach.  Only  in  this  way  can  our  peace  of  mind 
and  the  even  current  of  our  life  be  maintained, 
and  only  so  can  we  preserve  our  conscience  free 
of  blame.  “This  is  education,  to  learn  what  is 
ours,  and  what  is  not  ours.” 

Turning  now  to  our  own  immediate  experi¬ 
ence,  we  see  something  like  that  which  we  ob¬ 
served  in  the  conduct  of  other  men,  yet  with 
something  added.  Here  too  we  are  carried  on 
through  a  consideration  of  the  will  and  the  Gov¬ 
erning  Principle  to  dogmata.  “To  every  one  the 
cause  of  his  doing  anything  is  his  dogmata,”  it 
is  said  categorically ;  and  our  dogmata  are  sim¬ 
ply  that  which  appears  to  us,  “for  the  measure 


EPICTETUS 


H7 

to  man  of  all  doing  is  appearance.”  And  again: 
“When  we  are  impeded,  or  disturbed,  or  dis¬ 
tressed,  let  us  never  lay  the  blame  on  others,  but 
on  ourselves,  that  is,  on  our  dogmata.  To  accuse 
others  for  one’s  own  misfortunes  shows  a  want 
of  education;  to  accuse  one’s  self  is  the  begin¬ 
ning  of  education ;  to  accuse  neither  others  nor 
one’s  self  shows  that  one’s  education  is  com¬ 
plete.”  That  would  seem  to  obliterate  the  dis¬ 
tinction  between  impressions  and  the  use  of  im¬ 
pressions  so  far  as  any  responsibility  for  them  is 
concerned,  and  to  leave  man  a  helpless  victim  of 
the  world.  Nevertheless  the  Stoic  was  above  all, 
and  despite,  if  necessary,  his  reason,  conscious 
of  his  own  moral  responsibility.  One  step  yet 
remained  for  him.  He  might,  in  accordance 
with  his  fatalism,  admit  that  impressions  and,  if 
pushed  to  the  wall,  his  use  of  impressions,  his 
dogmata,  and  his  positive  will,  were  imposed  up¬ 
on  him  without  his  choice,  but  one  thing  was  still 
his  own :  though  he  could  not  create  impressions 
or  dogmata,  and  though,  in  the  end,  he  must  act 
as  the  prevalent  dogma  bids,  he  could  still  for  a 
time  hold  his  dogmata  in  check.  This  is  the  fac¬ 
ulty  which  he  called  epoche,  “suspension  of  as¬ 
sent.”  How  this  suspension  operated  may  be 
gathered  from  a  few  statements  of  Epictetus: 


148  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

“Where  does  your  work  lie?  In  desire  and 
aversion,  that  you  may  not  suffer  failure  in  de¬ 
sire  nor  force  in  aversion ;  in  impulse  to  act  and 
not  to  act,  that  you  may  not  err  therein ;  in  as¬ 
sent  and  suspension  of  assent.” 

“First  of  all,  do  not  be  hurried  away  by  the 
suddenness  of  the  shock,  but  say:  ‘Wait  for  me 
a  little,  impression ;  let  me  see  what  you  are,  and 
what  is  at  stake;  let  me  test  you.’  And,  further, 
do  not  permit  it  to  go  on  picturing  the  next 
scene.  If  you  do,  it  straightway  carries  you  off 
whither  it  will.” 

“Third  comes  the  field  of  assents,  concerned 
with  things  plausible  and  attractive.  F or,  as  Soc¬ 
rates  bade  men  ‘not  live  a  life  without  exami¬ 
nation,’  so  you  ought  not  to  admit  an  impres¬ 
sion  without  examination,  but  say,  ‘ W ait,  let  me 
see  who  you  are  and  whence  you  come,’  just  as 
the  night  watch  say,  ‘Show  me  your  token.’  ” 

“When  you  imagine  some  pleasure,  beware, 
as  in  the  case  of  other  impressions,  that  it  does 
not  carry  you  away.  Wait  awhile  and  give  your¬ 
self  pause.  Then  remember  two  things :  the  time 
you  will  enjoy  the  pleasure,  and  the  after  time 
of  repentance  and  self-reproach.  .  .  .  And  if 
it  seems  to  you  opportune  to  realize  the  pleasure, 
take  heed  that  you  be  not  mastered  by  its  win¬ 
ning  sweetness.” 

“Wherefore  make  it  your  first  endeavour  not 
to  be  carried  away  by  an  impression ;  for  if  once 


EPICTETUS 


149 

you  gain  time  and  delay  you  will  be  more  master 
of  yourself.”24 

The  process  is  fairly  clear.  Upon  the  mind, 
already  crowded  with  memories  of  the  past,  a 
new  impression  is  made  by  some  object  or  event. 
Our  response  in  desire  or  aversion,  in  positive 
or  negative  impulse,  will  depend  upon  our  use 
of  this  new  impression;  our  use  of  it  is  coinci¬ 
dent  with  our  judgment  of  it;  our  judgment  is 
an  act  of  assent  or  dissent,  and  our  assent,  when 
given,  is  determined  by  the  way  the  object  or 
event  appears  to  us.  All  the  consequences  flow 
from  the  impression  itself  and  from  the  memory 
of  former  impressions ;  the  mind  creates  nothing, 
and  knowledge  comes  to  us  by  passive  adapta¬ 
tions.  We  are  carried  about  in  a  circle  of  fatal¬ 
ity,  and  there  is  no  freedom  except  in  that  one 
clause,  when  given.  The  consequences  to  our¬ 
selves  may  be  of  one  sort  if  assent  and  judgment 
follow  immediately  upon  the  impression;  they 
may  be  of  an  entirely  different  sort  if  we  sus¬ 
pend  assent  for  a  time,  and  so  allow  our  judg¬ 
ment  to  be  modified  by  the  stored-up  body  of 

•  05 

experience. 

24 Discourses  I,  iv,  11;  II,  xviii,  24;  III,  xii,  14;  Manual  34,  20. 
Cf.  Plutarch,  Adv.  Coloten  1122c. 

25The  term  “suspense”  ( epoche )  is  common  to  both  Sceptics  and 
Stoics,  but  it  has  a  different  meaning  in  the  two  schools.  The 
Sceptic  applies  his  suspense  of  judgment  to  all  final  conclusions 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


150 

In  the  last  analysis  that  which  is  mine,  the 
me,  as  distinguished  from  all  that  is  not  mine, 
the  not-me,  is  driven  back  by  negation  after  ne¬ 
gation  to  a  power  of  suspension,  which  is  some¬ 
times  called  the  Inner  Check.  We  have  a  phi¬ 
losophy  superficially  resembling  Platonism,  but 
with  a  fundamental  difference.  For  Epictetus 
the  soul,  considered  positively,  is  not  a  dual  com¬ 
pound  of  reason  and  the  passions  as  Plato  con¬ 
ceived  it,  but  is  one  and  indivisible,  a  portion  of 
the  pure  reason  of  God.  If  passions  break  in  to 
perturb  the  quiet  current  of  our  life,  it  is  because 
the  soul  as  a  unit  turns  in  a  wrong  direction  and 
ceases  to  function  in  accordance  with  its  nature. 
If  you  ask  why  and  how  such  a  perversion  oc¬ 
curs,  the  answer  apparently  will  be  that  the  nat¬ 
ural  operation  of  a  reasonable  soul  is  to  act  as  a 
stay  upon  the  flux  of  impressions  that  continu¬ 
ally  invade  it  from  the  world,  and  that,  in  its 
evil  case,  it  fails  so  to  operate.  Evil  in  the  soul 
would  thus  be  not  so  much  a  positive  chan'ge  in 
the  nature  of  that  which  is  essentially  good,  as  a 
kind  of  relaxation  of  energy,  an  atony  or  tem¬ 
porary  sluggishness,  to  which  it  succumbs.  Its 

concerning  the  nature  of  things;  appearances  he  simply  accepts 
at  their  face  value  as  appearances.  The  Stoic  exercises  a  sus¬ 
pension  of  assent  to  appearances  in  order  to  maintain  the  final 
judgment  that  all  is  really  good. 


EPICTETUS 


151 

passions  are  then  a  true  passivity  rather  than  an 
active  principle  of  evil.21  But  to  the  further  ques¬ 
tion  why  the  soul  suffers  this  relaxation,  and 
assents  when  it  should  not,  there  is  no  answer. 
Neither  was  any  answer  given  by  Plato;  but  in 
the  case  of  the  Stoics  the  very  possibility  of  the 
question  is  an  arraignment  of  the  ultimate  mon¬ 
ism  of  their  physics. 

And  an  equally  troublesome  question  springs 
up  from  the  other  side :  Why  is  there  any  need 
of  that  staying  power  of  the  will  or  reason?  What 
is  it  in  the  nature  of  things  that  lies  in  wait  for 
us,  so  to  speak,  and  takes  advantage  of  the  soul’s 
indolence?  To  explain  this  the  Stoics  have  a 
beautiful  and,  to  me  at  least,  haunting  phrase, 
first  apparently  introduced  by  Cleanthes,  cer¬ 
tainly  used  by  Chrysippus,  and  not  forgotten  by 
Epictetus — “the  seductiveness  in  things,”  “the 
plausibility  of  circumstances,”  “the  persuasion 
of  appearances,”  as  the  words  are  variously 
translated.27  We  are,  as  it  were,  ravished  by  the 

ssThis  is  the  rhathymia  of  which  I  have  written  at  length  in  The 
Religion  of  Plato  25 3  ff.  In  Stoicism  the  actual  word  used  is 
atonia.  The  notion  is  connected  with  their  principle  of  tonos, 
energy,  the  active  principle  as  contrasted  with  the  passive,  which 
diminishes  in  force  as  the  evolutionary  process  extends  further 
and  further  from  the  primeval  source.  Taking  into  account  the 
mechanical  terms  in  which  tonos  is  defined,  one  might  say  that 
the  Stoic  conception  of  passion  and  will  is  a  materialistic  counter¬ 
part  of  the  Neoplatonic  conception. 

27  'H  7T  l8clv6tt]S  t(ov  it  p  ay  gar  10  v, 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


152 

persuasive  beauty  of  the  world  and  by  its  lure  of 
pleasures,  and  so  the  refraining  will  succumbs 
to  precipitate  judgments,  assenting  indolently 
where  it  should  exercise  suspension,  admitting 
that  as  good  and  desirable  which  a  slower  judg¬ 
ment  would  recognize  as  really  foreign  to  the 
soul.  The  error  of  judgment,  or  false  dogma, 
would  resolve  itself  at  last  into  a  darkening  con¬ 
fusion  of  the  soul  and  the  world,  or,  in  the  more 
technical  language  of  the  school,  into  forgetful¬ 
ness  of  the  difference  between  what  is  mine  and 
not  mine.  I  am  inclined  to  accept  this  account  of 
error  and  evil  as  perhaps  the  finest  in  the  history 
of  philosophy.  It  is  at  bottom  a  paraphrase  of 
the  theory  implicit  in  the  Platonic  ethics,  and  a 
foreshadowing  of  the  theory  which  will  be  held 
by  some  of  the  wisest  of  the  Christian  theolo¬ 
gians.  It  raises  no  logical  difficulty  there  where 
it  belongs,  though  it  may  still  leave  the  ultimate 
problem  of  metaphysics  unsolved  and  insolu¬ 
ble.  But  no  Stoic  will  tell  you  why  or  how,  in  a 
world  identical  with  God  and  perfectly  organ¬ 
ized,  the  plausibility  of  things  should  have  this 
power  to  seduce  the  will,  turning  reason  into 
passion  and  producing  evil  out  of  goodness.  Nor 
will  he  tell  you  why  the  morality  of  our  specific 
acts  may  depend  on  a  suspension  of  assent,  while 


EPICTETUS 


153 

the  root  of  all  morality  depends  on  our  unhesi¬ 
tating  assent  to  the  universe  as  it  is  and  to  life 
as  a  whole.  On  the  other  hand,  no  genuine  Stoic, 
however  he  may  feel  towards  other  men  as  though 
they  were  passive  instruments  of  their  dogmata, 
will  admit  that  he  is  not  himself  finally  respon¬ 
sible  for  his  assent  to  error  and  for  his  own  mis¬ 
takes  and  unhappiness. 


VII 

The  fact  is  that  Stoicism,  by  a  fault  inherent  in 
its  method,  was  perhaps  of  all  philosophies  the 
most  paradoxical.  Seduced  by  the  fascinations 
of  the  combining  reason,  it  started  with  an  ab¬ 
solutely  monistic  and  deterministic  theory  of 
the  world,  and  then,  in  abhorrence  at  the  im¬ 
moral  consequences  of  such  a  theory,  accepted 
the  non-rational  and  dualistic  intuitions  of  good 
and  evil.  The  inevitable  result  is  a  succession  of 
flaunting  paradoxes  which  radiate  from  these 
two  contradictions :  the  world  is  totally  good,  yet 
human  experience  is  full  of  evil ;  and,  all  things 
are  fatally  determined,  yet  man’s  will  is  free. 
Evil,  the  Stoics  assert  in  one  breath  is  not  real 
but  only  apparent,  the  necessary  imperfection 
of  the  parts  contributing  to  the  perfection  of  the 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


154 

whole;  yet  almost  in  the  same  breath  they  are 
painting  man’s  life  on  earth  in  colours  of  the 
blackest  pessimism.  The  inconsistency  is  most 
striking  in  Marcus  Aurelius,  who  does  not  shrink 
from  the  strongest,  even  the  most  revolting,  terms 
to  describe  the  miseries  of  the  body  and  of  so¬ 
ciety  ;  but  Epictetus  is  not  free  of  the  same  pes¬ 
simism.  Instruction  in  his  school  was  directed  to 
nerving  the  pupils  against  a  world  bristling  with 
hostile  forces:  “Life  is  a  soldier’s  service;  one 
man  must  keep  guard,  another  go  out  as  a  scout, 
another  take  the  field.”  Yet  these  same  pupils 
are  rebuked  if,  sent  out  as  spies  to  reconnoitre 
the  land,  they  do  not  report,  as  did  the  Cynic 
Diogenes,  that  “no  enemy  is  near,  all  things  are 
full  of  peace.”  One  is  reminded  of  Jeremiah’s 
scornful  words,  “Peace,  peace,  when  there  is  no 
peace.”  And  then,  if  a  man  suffers  defeat  in  this 
battle,  is  it  that  he  has  been  borne  down  inno¬ 
cently  by  superior  force,  or  shall  he  be  held  re¬ 
sponsible?  No  one  is  deprived  of  the  truth  will¬ 
ingly,  no  one  errs  willingly,  Epictetus  will  insist 
in  various  language,  and  insist  all  the  while  with 
equal  fervour  that  every  man  is  free  and  need 
only  exercise  his  will  to  be  good.  It  is  no  solution 
of  these  entanglements  to  maintain  that  all  things 
are  good  and  only  thinking  makes  them  evil. 


EPICTETUS 


155 

Whence  the  evil  thought?  Whence  the  terrible 
earnestness  in  a  conflict  with  unreal  shadows? 

“To  question  to  and  fro 
And  to  debate  the  evil  of  the  worlds 
As  though  we  bore  no  portion  of  that  ill. 

As  though  with  subtle  phrases  we  could  spin 
A  woof  to  screen  us  from  life’s  undelight. 

.  .  .  How  vain  are  words, 

When  that  which  is  opposed  to  them  is  more.” 

These  embarrassments  were  not  overlooked 
by  the  ancient  critics  of  the  Porch— as  indeed 
how  should  they  be  ?  At  the  very  beginning  the 
Stoic  had  to  meet  the  arguments  of  the  Epi¬ 
curean  who  could  at  least  see  the  difficult  posi¬ 
tion  of  a  philosophy  which  commanded  men  to 
live  according  to  nature,  yet  took  no  account  of 
pleasure  and  pain  or  even  went  so  far  as  almost 
to  glory  in  pain.  Surely  pleasure  is  a  natural 
good,  a  thing  desired  by  all  men,  and  pain  a 
natural  evil.  The  Platonist,  who  also  made  little 
of  pleasure  and  pain,  could  answer  that  he  did 
so  because  pleasure  was  in  fact  insignificant  in 
comparison  with  the  happiness  to  be  found  in  a 
realm  of  the  spirit  quite  apart  from  nature ;  but 
the  Stoic  left  no  such  retreat  open  against  his 
adversaries.  Then  came  the  leaders  of  the  so- 
called  Middle  Academy,  Arcesilas  and  Car- 


156  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

neades,  who  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  plied 
the  Stoic  stronghold  with  every  weapon  of  scep¬ 
ticism.  It  was  easy  for  these  trained  logicians, 
especially  Carneades,  to  show  the  untenability 
of  a  monistic  optimism  by  simply  pointing  to  the 
innumerable  instances  of  actual  evil ;  it  was  easy 
to  set  forth  the  inconsistency  of  clinging  to  the 
belief  in  Providence  and  conscious  design  in  a 
universe  of  absolute  determinism ;  and  more  vir¬ 
ulently,  as  we  have  seen,  they  drove  the  Stoic 
from  point  to  point  inhis  criterion  of  knowledge. 
This  warfare  between  the  Academy  and  the 
Porch  was  not  forgotten,  and  long  afterwards 
Plutarch  summed  up  the  results  in  a  crushing 
essay  De  Stoicorum  Repugnantiis.  But  for  the 
heart  of  the  matter  we  may  turn  to  the  Christian 
critics,  to  J ustin  Martyr,  for  instance,  who  struck 
home  in  this  notable  passage : 

“Everywhere  right-minded  lawgivers  and 
thinkers  show  this  [the  inherent  sense  of  respon¬ 
sibility  in  man  for  good  and  evil]  by  their  com¬ 
mands  that  such  things  we  shall  do  and  from 
such  things  we  shall  refrain.  And  the  Stoic 
philosophers  also  in  their  ethical  theory  show  a 
strong  respect  for  these  same  truths,  so  that  it  is 
clear  there  must  be  some  fault  in  their  natural¬ 
istic  doctrine  of  first  principles.  For  let  them  say 
that  human  actions  are  due  to  fate,  or  let  them 


EPICTETUS 


157 

say  that  God  is  nothing  but  transitory  matter 
always  taking  new  forms  and  dissolving  back 
into  itself  again,  the  Stoics  are  caught  on  this 
dilemma:  either  they  will  be  found  to  acknow¬ 
ledge  only  corruptible  things  and  to  teach  that 
God  Himself  as  extended  through  the  whole 
and  parts  of  the  universe  is  involved  in  the  sum 
of  evil,  or  else  they  must  declare  that  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  good  and  evil.’528 

It  is  curious  and  illuminating  to  hear  William 
James  in  our  day  applying  the  same  dilemma, 
in  still  more  vigorous  terms,  to  a  modern  equiva¬ 
lent  of  the  Stoic  paradox : 

“My  trouble,  you  see,  lies  with  monism.  Deter- 
minism=monism ;  and  a  monism  like  this  world 
can’t  be  an  object  of  pure  optimistic  contempla¬ 
tion.  By  pessimism  I  simply  mean  ultimate  non¬ 
optimism.  The  Ideal  is  only  apart  of  this  world. 
Make  the  world  a  Pluralism,  and  you  forthwith 
have  an  object  to  worship.  Make  it  a  Unit,  on 
the  other  hand,  and  worship  and  abhorrence  are 
equally  one-sided  and  equally  legitimate  reac¬ 
tions.  Indifferentism  is  the  true  condition  of  such 
a  world,  and  turn  the  matter  how  you  will,  I 
don’t  see  how  any  philosophy  of  the  Absolute 
can  ever  escape  from  that  capricious  alterna¬ 
tion  of  mysticism  and  satanism  in  the  treat¬ 
ment  of  its  great  Idol,  which  history  has  always 
shown.  .  .  .  Either  close  your  eyes  and  adopt 


28 Apology  II,  vi,  7. 


158  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

an  optimism  or  a  pessimism  equally  daft ;  or  ex¬ 
clude  moral  categories  altogether  from  a  place 
in  the  world’s  definition,  which  leaves  the  world 
unheimlich ,  reptilian,  and  foreign  to  man;  or 
else,  sticking  to  it  that  the  moral  judgment  is 
applicable,  give  up  the  hope  of  applying  it  to 
the  whole .”29 

The  logic  of  the  Porch  in  fact  was  terribly 
vulnerable,  and  as  a  result  of  the  attacks  deliv¬ 
ered  from  the  sceptics  of  the  Academy  the  lead¬ 
ers  of  the  school  tried  to  fortify  their  position 
by  various  outworks,  so  to  speak,  built  of  thefts 
from  Aristotle  and  even  more  flagrantly  from 
Plato.  The  result  was  the  so-called  Middle  Porch 
of  Panaetius  and  Posidonius,  answering  to  the 
Middle  Academy. 

But  however  Stoicism  by  these  modifications 
may  have  averted  an  immediate  danger,  it  did 
not  render  itself  really  immune ;  it  enlarged  the 
sentimental  scope  of  its  doctrine  and  humanized 
its  ethics,  but  it  did  so  only  by  utterly  confound¬ 
ing  a  logic  already  sufficiently  confused.  Both 
Panaetius  and  Posidonius  clung  to  the  physical 
monism  and  determinism  of  Zeno,  and  then,  in- 

29  Letters  I,  238,  25 7.  See  also  p.  245.  Unfortunately  James, 
doughty  foe  as  he  was  of  every  form  of  absolutism  of  the  One, 
by  his  theory  of  pluralism  came  very  close  to  the  opposite  abso¬ 
lutism  of  the  many.  Hence,  with  all  his  brilliancy  and  insight, 
his  failure  to  bring  true  spiritual  relief  from  the  prison  house  of 
metaphysics. 


EPICTETUS 


159 

stead  of  holding  that  human  nature  also  was  one 
and  purely  rational,  and  facing  full  front  the 
embarrassments  of  such  a  psychology,  they  un¬ 
dertook  to  slip  Plato’s  dualistic  conception  of 
the  soul  into  an  utterly  incompatible  metaphysic. 
I  am  not  writing  a  history  of  Greek  philosophy 
and  have  no  need  to  go  into  the  details  of  this 
impossible  mixture;  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that 
Epictetus  was  evidently  shocked  by  the  mess — 
the  word  is  not  too  strong — into  which  Stoicism 
had  been  thrown,  and,  in  the  main,  reverted  to 
the  earlier  and  authentic  doctrine  as  it  was  de¬ 
veloped  by  Chrysippus. 

One  admires  the  honesty  of  the  reformer’s 
purpose,  one  is  deeply  impressed  by  the  solidity 
and  rigour  with  which  he  carries  out  the  ancient 
tenets  and  applies  them  to  life;  but  the  old  in¬ 
consistency  still  lurks  like  a  serpent  at  the  heart 
of  the  system,  scotched  but  not  killed.  It  is  one 
of  the  irreparable  misfortunes  of  philosophy 
that  some  great  thinker  did  not  arise  who,  with 
clearer  vision  and  more  radical  hand,  should 
have  thrown  over  the  Stoic  rationalism  for  the 
Platonic  dualism,  and  then,  on  that  sounder 
foundation,  should  have  adopted  and  adapted 
the  large  achievements  of  the  Stoic  teachers  in 
the  field  of  ethics.  Such  a  conversion  was  per- 


160  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

fectly  practicable,  and  the  result  might  have 
been  a  body  of  thought  unshakable  at  the  base 
and  majestic  in  its  superstructure.30  The  Stoic 
creed  of  dogmata  would  not  be  denied,  but  en¬ 
riched  with  new  significance.  It  would  still  be 
true  that  all  our  philosophy  and  all  conduct  de¬ 
pend  on  right  or  wrong  judgments — yet  with  a 
difference.  We  should  not  say  that  no  actual 
wrong  exists  in  this  absolutely  determined  world, 
and  that  things  only  seem  wrong  by  a  false  judg¬ 
ment,  and  so  in  a  way  are  evil  to  us,  with  the 
stubborn  question  still  unanswered  why  we  so 
judge  when  we  are  parts  of  such  a  world.  Rath¬ 
er,  we  should  say  that  both  good  and  evil  are  real- 
dy  here  in  the  sum  of  things,  but  that  for  us  the 
world  may  become  a  place  of  good  or  evil  in  ac¬ 
cordance  with  our  judgments.  For  when  we 
judge  truly,  and  our  opinion  of  right  and  wrong 
coincides  with  the  eternal  laws,  then  the  world 
does  indeed  become  good  to  us  in  so  far  as  the 
evil  in  it  cannot  invade  the  citadel  of  our  being, 
and  we  understand  what  Socrates  meant  when 
he  declared  that  no  harm  can  befall  a  good  man 
either  in  this  life  or  the  next.  The  true  office  of 
philosophy  is  to  overcome  evil,  not  to  deny  it. 

soThis  in  a  measure  was  actually  done  by  Plutarch  ( e.g the  last 
sections  of  De  Tranquilitate  Animi )  and  other  syneretists,  but 
never,  as  it  seems  to  me,  with  full  comprehension  of  the  problem. 


EPICTETUS 


161 


Then  the  Stoic  Wheel,  as  I  have  called  it, 
with  its  distinction  between  mine  and  not-mine 
and  the  other  pairs  that  follow,  would  not  be 
left  to  revolve  in  vacuo ,  so  to  speak,  but  would 
correspond  to  a  final  distinction  in  the  nature  of 
things.  And  a  like  transformation  would  take 
place  in  applying  the  Wheel  to  the  three  Fields. 
Good  and  evil  would  depend  on  the  character  of 
our  desires  and  aversions,  but  a  new  and  positive 
content  would  be  given  to  this  direction  of  the 
soul.31  The  idia,  things  that  are  ours,  to  which 
desire  should  be  directed,  would  now  be  identi¬ 
fied  with  the  Platonic  Ideas  where  the  interest 
of  the  true  self  lies,  and  our  aversion  would  be 
turned  towards  the  positive  forces  of  evil  in  the 
flux  of  phenomena.  The  bleak  negation  of  the 
Stoic  would  acquire  a  positive  aspect  in  the  true 
life  of  the  spirit.  And  so  with  the  impulse  to  act 
or  not  to  act:  how  much  of  the  inconsequence 
observed  in  the  obligations  of  life  would  be  re¬ 
moved,  if  we  kept  the  sense  of  responsibility  for 
our  part  in  a  great  drama  of  creation  with  its 
eternal  and  ever-present  issues;  how  the  un¬ 
reality  felt  in  the  duties  prescribed  by  human 
relations  would  be  overcome,  if  the  institutions 
of  society  were  regarded  as  necessary,  though 


3i Cf.  Plato  Tine  Republic  518e. 


162 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


faulty,  copies  of  a  divine  order;  how  the  cold¬ 
ness  that  chills  the  theoretical  brotherhood  of. 
mankind  would  be  warmed  up,  if  the  Stoic  con¬ 
ception  of  the  sage  as  a  being  completely  super¬ 
ior  to  mortal  frailty  and  emotion,  impervious  to 
pain  or  sorrow,  not  even  subject  to  temptation, 
with  no  intermediary  between  his  bleak,  unat¬ 
tainable  perfection  and  the  total  folly  of  ordi¬ 
nary  men,  were  softened  to  the  Socratic  ideal  of 
the  philosopher  as  one  still  striving  for  wisdom, 
still  contending  with  his  passions,  differing  only 
in  degree  of  attainment  from  his  un  wiser  com¬ 
rade.  For  here  again  we  are  struck  by  the  ano¬ 
maly  that  a  philosophy  which  begins  with  the 
assumption  of  an  impossible  monism  ends  prac¬ 
tically  in  a  harsh  and  unreal  dualism.32  On  the 
other  side,  how  much  the  profound  intuition  of 
Plato  might  have  gained  in  precise  usefulness 
through  the  subtle  analysis  of  the  Stoic  ethics. 
And  then,  in  the  Third  Field,  where  the  ethical 
law  is  summed  up  in  the  word  “assent,”  all  that 
the  Stoics  had  added  to  philosophy  might  have 
been  retained,  while  the  maddening  query  “as¬ 
sent  to  what  ?”  would  have  lost  its  sting.  Right- 

ssThe  wearisome  question  of  the  Stoic  sage,  or  perfect  man,  and 
the  possibility  or  impossibility  of  such  a  creature,  is  not  dis¬ 
cussed  dialectically  by  Epictetus.  What  he  made  of  the  sage  as  a 
personality  of  history  we  shall  see  in  our  study  of  Diogenes. 


EPICTETUS  163 

ness  of  assent  would  still  be  defined  as  a  conse¬ 
quence  of  that  vigour  of  the  soul  which  imposes 
a  stay  upon  the  impressions  surging  through  it 
from  the  world,  but  the  “seductiveness  in  things” 
which  makes  such  a  suspension  of  judgment 
necessary,  and  the  passions  of  the  soul  itself, 
would  now  have  a  substantial  meaning. 

And,  lastly,  the  Stoic  faith  in  the  fatherhood 
of  God  and  the  Stoic  piety,  how  they  would  have 
gained  in  fervour  and  security,  if  the  foundation 
on  which  such  emotions  ought  to  rest  had  not 
been  undermined.  Even  as  it  is,  at  whatever  cost 
of  inconsistency,  the  religion  of  the  Porch  in 
some  respects  marks  a  genuine  advance  upon 
that  of  the  Academy  in  the  direction  of  Chris¬ 
tianity.  God,  whatever  He  should  have  been  log¬ 
ically,  was  in  fact  to  Epictetus  no  such  cold  ab¬ 
straction  as  He  was  becoming  in  the  metaphys¬ 
ical  school  of  the  day,  nor  was  He  hard  to  know 
and  impossible  to  express  quite  as  He  had  seemed 
to  Plato,  nor  was  He  a  fancy  to  be  grasped  by 
the  imagination  only.  One  cannot  read  Epicte¬ 
tus  without  feeling  that  in  his  realization  of  the 
divine  nearness  he  was  almost  a  Christian ;  and 
this  is  so  true  of  a  contemporary  Stoic,  Seneca, 
that  Tertullian  and  Jerome  actually  regarded 
him  as  a  disciple  of  St.  Paul  and  the  Council  of 


164  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

Trent  cited  him  as  it  did  the  Fathers  of  the 
Church.  “In  thyself  thou  bearest  Him,”  says 
Epictetus,  “and  art  unaware  that  thou  art  defil¬ 
ing  Him  with  unclean  thoughts  and  foul  actions. 
If  an  image  of  God  were  present,  thou  wouldst  „ 
not  dare  to  behave  so;  but  now  God  Himself 
is  present  within  thee,  seeing  all  things,  hear¬ 
ing  all  things,  yet  thou  art  not  ashamed  of  thy 
thoughts  and  deeds,  O  slow  to  understand  thy 
own  nature  and  estranged  from  God!”  Thus  the 
central  act  of  religion  for  Epictetus,  as  for  all 
those  from  Plato  to  Chrysostom  who  did  not  ut¬ 
terly  depart  from  the  Tradition,  was  the  en¬ 
deavour  to  make  one’s  self  so  far  as  possible  like 
to  God: 

“The  philosophers  say  that  the  first  thing  one 
must  learn  is  this :  'that  God  exists  and  provides 
for  the  universe,  and  that  no  man  can  act  or  even 
conceive  a  thought  or  reflection  without  God 
knowing.  Next  is  to  learn  the  true  nature  of  the 
gods.  For  whatever  their  nature  is  found  to  be, 
he  who  will  please  and  obey  them  must  needs 
try,  so  far  as  he  can,  to  make  himself  like  them.’ 
If  the  divine  nature  is  faithful,  he  must  be  faith¬ 
ful  too ;  if  free,  he  must  be  free  too ;  if  beneficent, 
he  too  must  be  beneficent;  if  high-minded,  he 
must  be  high-minded:  he  must,  in  fact,  as  one 
who  makes  God  his  ideal,  follow  this  out  in  every 
act  and  word.” 


EPICTETUS 


165 

There  is  nothing  original  in  this  conception 
of  “becoming  like,”  but  in  the  spirit  of  devotion 
that  went  with  it  one  catches  a  note  that  had 
never  before  been  sounded  so  clearly  in  pagan 
worship.  One  day  the  lonely  exile  in  INTicopolis, 
after  pointing  out  the  manifold  bountiful  works 
of  Providence,  seems  to  have  forgotten  the  school¬ 
room  and  the  pupils  who  so  many  of  them  came 
to  him  for  ignoble  purposes,  and  breaks  into  a 
chant  of  benediction  to  the  great  and  good  Fa¬ 
ther,  greatest  and  best  because  He  has  given  to 
man  the  faculty  to  comprehend  His  beneficence. 
Surely,  all  men  ought  at  every  moment  to  re¬ 
member  the  divine  goodness  with  thanksgiving : 

“More  than  that :  since  most  of  you  are  walk¬ 
ing  in  darkness,  should  there  not  be  some  one  to 
discharge  this  duty  and  to  sing  praises  to  God 
for  all?  And  what  else  can  a  lame  old  man  like 
me  do  but  chant  the  praise  of  God?  If  indeed  I 
were  a  nightingale,  I  should  sing  as  a  nightin¬ 
gale  ;  if  a  swan,  as  a  swan :  but  as  I  am  a  rational 
creature  I  must  praise  God.  This  is  my  task ;  I 
do  it,  and  I  will  not  abandon  this  duty  so  long 
as  it  is  given  me:  and  I  invite  you  all  to  join  in 
this  same  song.” 

I  know  of  nothing  quite  like  that  in  the  phi¬ 
losophers — not  in  Plato,  not  in  Plotinus.  It  is 
a  note  that  will  be  caught  up  by  the  priests  of  a 


i66 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


new  religion,  and  will  find  one  of  its  sweetest 
echoes  in  George  Herbert: 

“Of  all  the  creatures  both  in  sea  and  land 

Onely  to  Man  thou  hast  made  known  thy  wayes, 

And  put  the  penne  alone  into  his  hand. 

And  made  him  Secretaire  of  thy  praise. 

“Beasts  fain  would  sing;  birds  dittie  to  their  notes ; 

Trees  would  be  tuning  on  their  native  lute 
To  thy  renown;  but  all  their  hands  and  throats 

Are  brought  to  Man,  while  they  are  lame  and  mute. 

“Man  is  the  world’s  high  Priest.  He  doth  present 
The  sacrifice  for  all ;  while  they  below 
Unto  the  service  mutter  an  assent, 

Such  as  springs  use  that  fall  and  windes  that  blow. 

“Pie  that  to  praise  and  laud  thee  doth  refrain 
Doth  not  refrain  unto  himself  alone, 

But  robs  a  thousand  who  would  praise  thee  fain, 

And  doth  commit  a  world  of  sinne  in  one. 

“Wherefore,  most  sacred  Spirit,  I  here  present 
For  me  and  all  my  fellows  praise  to  thee. 

And  just  it  is  that  I  should  pay  the  rent, 

Because  the  benefit  accrues  to  me.” 

We  repeat  the  devotional  passages  of  Epic¬ 
tetus  and  Seneca  and  the  other  Stoics  which  echo 
the  magnificent  hymn  of  Cleanthes,  and  we  are 
stirred  deeply — and  rightly,  indeed,  for  of  in- 


EPICTETUS 


167 

sincerity  or  hypocrisy  there  is  no  suspicion  in 
these  men — and  then  into  our  sympathetic  emo¬ 
tion  creeps  the  benumbing  recollection  that  this 
Being  of  their  worship  is  only  a  subtle  form  of 
matter  pervading  the  grosser  visible  elements ; 
that  this  Providence  which  we  are  asked  to  cele¬ 
brate  in  chants  of  praise  is  only  another  name 
for  a  mechanical  law  of  expansion  and  contrac¬ 
tion,  absolutely  predetermined  in  its  everlasting 
recurrences ;  and  that  this  worshipping  soul,  this 
boasted  spark  of  reason  which  distinguishes  man, 
is  nothing  more  than  a  glimmering  flame  of  the 
universal  fire  caught  for  a  moment  in  an  ephem¬ 
eral  cage  of  flesh,  with  no  assurance  of  separate 
duration,  no  independence  of  personality, — is 
nothing  more  at  best  than  a  bundle  of  dogmata 
with  no  spiritual  entity  behind  them.  How  dif¬ 
ferent,  one  reflects,  might  have  been  the  whole 
course  of  the  world’s  inner  life,  how  much  of  the 
estrangement  between  philosophy  and  religion 
might  have  been  avoided,  if  Panaetius  and  more 
particularly  Posidonius,  in  their  reform  of  Ze¬ 
no’s  psychology,  had  shaken  off  the  tyranny  of 
metaphysics,  and,  going  a  step  further,  had  ac¬ 
cepted  the  fundamental  dualism  of  Plato  instead 
of  merely  borrowing  shreds  and  tatters  of  its 
spiritual  implications.  Certainly  the  leaders  of 


i68 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


the  Porch,  if  ever  any  religious  guides,  made  the 
great  refusal. 

And  the  result  of  that  refusal  is  the  note  of 
sadness  on  which  this  philosophy  ends — a  sad¬ 
ness  nobler  in  character,  yet  infinitely  more  pa¬ 
thetic,  I  sometimes  think,  than  the  final  joyless¬ 
ness  of  the  rival  school  of  the  Garden.  All  through 
the  Discourses  of  Epictetus  at  intervals  occurs 
the  ominous  phrase,  “The  door  is  open,”  “Open 
is  the  door.”  The  practice  of  philosophy,  he  used 
to  say,  is  summed  up  in  the  two  words  “bear” 
and  “forbear”  ( anechou ,  apechou )  ;  and  then, 
if  the  hand  of  the  world  became  too  heavy  and 
temptation  pressed  too  close,  there  was  left  to 
every  man  the  one  way  of  escape  from  failure 
and  disgrace.  I  would  not  infer  that  this  remov¬ 
al  of  the  “canon  ’gainst  self -slaughter”  implies 
anything  weak  or  contemptible  in  the  creed  or 
lives  of  these  men ;  there  is  no  trace  in  Epictetus 
or  in  any  other  genuine  Stoic  of  the  “sickly  incli¬ 
nation”33  which  led  Donne  to  argue  the  legiti¬ 
macy  of  suicide  for  a  Christian.  Voluntary  exit 
from  the  battle  field  was  permitted  only  when 
victory  was  impossible  and  defeat  certain,  and 
the  signs  were  such  that  the  sage  coidd  know 
surely  the  summons  of  the  Captain  to  retire.  The 


zzBiatlianatos  17. 


EPICTETUS 


169 

mere  shirking  of  pain  and  danger  was  scorned 
by  the  Stoic  as  loyally  as  by  the  Christian,  and 
the  record  of  the  deaths  of  Thraseas  and  Arria 
and  the  other  political  martyrs  in  Tacitus  is  the 
most  stirring  memory  from  the  dark  days  of  the 
Empire ;  yet  there,  after  all,  meeting  us  at  every 
turn,  is  the  bitter  phrase,  “The  door  is  open,” — 
a  strange  admission  to  be  wrung  from  the  heart 
of  men  who  taught  that  all  things  are  for  the 
best  and  that  there  is  no  real  evil  in  this  world. 

But  the  sadness  is  not  so  much  in  the  conces¬ 
sion  of  the  open  door  as  in  the  thought  of  the 
emptiness  that  lies  beyond:  “When  God  fails  to 
provide  for  you,  then  He  is  giving  the  signal  of 
retreat,  He  has  opened  the  door,  and  says  to 
you,  ‘Come.’ — Where? — To  nothing  fearful, 
but  thither  whence  you  were  born,  to  things 
friendly  and  akin  to  you,  to  the  elements” — and 
that  is  all.  These  are  honest  words,  no  doubt, 
instinct  with  that  stubborn  courage  and  that 
forced,  almost  sullen,  tranquillity  which  to  the 
popular  mind — whether  justly  or  not — sum  up 
the  meaning  of  the  boasted  Stoic  apathy.  Inevi¬ 
tably  one  compares  this  utmost  comfort  offered 
by  Epictetus  with  the  Christian  triumph  in  mar¬ 
tyrdom:  “To  the  baser  of  mankind  witness  to 
the  Lord  by  blood  seems  to  be  mere  death  and 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


170 

that  the  most  violent,  for  they  know  not  that  this 
gate  of  death  is  the  beginning  of  true  life.”34  Like 
the  Epicurean,  so  the  Stoic,  notwithstanding  his 
much  brave  talk  about  a  fatherland  beyond  the 
grave  and  about  his  kinship  to  God,  was  deliber¬ 
ately  shutting  his  eyes  on  “things  more  sublime 
than  mortal  happiness.”  Perhaps  the  most  beau¬ 
tiful  term  in  the  Stoic  vocabulary  is  the  eurhoia 
by  which  they  expressed  the  even  current  of  the 
sage’s  life,  moving  on  like  a  majestic  river.  It  is 
a  noble  ideal  and  no  doubt  often  in  large  meas¬ 
ure  attained ;  yet  for  the  Stoic  the  river  of  life 
was  hidden  from  the  sun,  and  deep  in  his  heart 
he  who  sailed  thereon  must  have  felt  himself  as 
a  waif  borne  on  a  stream  of  endless  and  mean¬ 
ingless  mutations.  The  words  with  which  Mat¬ 
thew  Arnold  closes  his  essay  on  Marcus  Aure¬ 
lius  apply  more  exactly  to  the  wistful  Emperor 
in  his  palace  than  to  the  exiled  freedman  of  our 
study,  but  they  ought  not  to  be  forgotten  in  any 
estimation  of  what  Stoicism  gave  and  failed  to 
give:  “We  see  him  wise,  just,  self -governed, 
tender,  thankful,  blameless;  yet,  with  all  this, 
agitated,  stretching  out  his  arms  for  something 
beyond, — tendentemque  manus  ripae  ulterioris 
amove” 


34Qemens  Alex.,  Strom.  IV,  vii,  44. 


EPICTETUS 


171 


As  for  Epictetus,  the  old  lame  schoolmaster 
of  Nicopolis,  he  is  one  of  the  supreme  doctors 
of  ethical  experience,  there  is  no  doubt  of  it ;  yet 
he  who  would  read  him  wisely,  I  sometimes  think, 
must  come  to  the  Discourses  as  a  Platonist  and 
not  as  a  Stoic,  and  must  write  between  the  lines 
and  insert  into  the  definitions  a  truth  of  which 
Epictetus  himself  had  been  robbed  by  the  false 
usurpations  of  the  intellectus  sibi  permissus. 


CHAPTER  V 


PLOTINUS 

The  sects  of  Epicurus  and  Zeno  go  back  through 
their  predecessors  to  immediate  association  with 
Socrates,  and  are  rivals  of  the  Academy,  if  not 
openly  anti-Platonic.  The  philosophy  we  are  now 
to  study  was  held  by  its  founder,  and  is  some¬ 
times  held  today,  to  be  rather  a  genuine  restora¬ 
tion  after  many  years  of  the  teaching  of  Plato: 
it  is  called  in  the  schools  Neoplatonism.  Yet  to 
me,  if  anything  is  clear,  it  is  that  the  dominating 
note  of  Plotinus  belongs  to  a  current  of  thought 
which  is  more  a  perversion  than  a  development 
of  what  was  learnt  in  the  Academy.1  And  in  view 
of  the  extraordinary  revival  of  interest  in  the 
mystics  shown  today,  and  in  Plotinus  as  the  fa¬ 
ther  of  them  all,  it  should  seem  to  be  a  matter  of 
some  importance  to  get  a  clear  notion  of  what 
Neoplatonism  really  was,  and  to  consider  how 

iDean  Inge’s  otherwise  illuminating  and  profound  study  of  The 
Philosojjhy  of  Plotinus  is  in  my  judgment  vitiated  by  the  failure 
to  observe  the  radical  differences  between  Platonism  and  Neo¬ 
platonism. 


172 


PLOTINUS 


*73 

far  it  is  a  source  of  true  religion  and  of  the  purer 
life  of  the  spirit. 

I 

Fortunately  we  have  for  Plotinus,  what  we  have 
for  no  other  of  the  ancient  philosophers,  a  good 
contemporary  biography,  composed  by  his  pu¬ 
pil  and  literary  executor,  Porphyry.  He  was 
born  in  Egypt  about  a.d.  205.  In  his  twenty- 
eighth  year2  he  became  interested  in  philosophy, 
and  frequented  the  most  highly  reputed  profes¬ 
sors  in  Alexandria;  but  with  little  satisfaction  to 
himself  until  he  was  directed  to  Ammonius  Sac- 
cas,  with  whom  he  studied  for  eleven  years.  The 
question  was  raised  in  antiquity,  and  recently 
has  been  reopened,  how  closely  Plotinus  fol¬ 
lowed  the  teaching  of  Ammonius,  and  how  far 
he  felt  the  direct  influence  of  a  certain  Nume- 
nius  of  Apamea.  It  is  probable  that  Ammonius 
himself  owed  a  good  deal  to  Numenius,  and  that 
in  this  way  ideas  of  the  Apamean  philosopher 
reached  Plotinus.  But  there  is  reason  to  believe 
that  for  the  most  part  Plotinus  was  a  faithful, 
though  by  no  means  servile,  disciple  of  Ammo¬ 
nius,  who  should  therefore  be  recognized  as  the 

2This  is  the  year  given  by  Porphyry,  but,  as  will  be  seen,  it  al¬ 
lows  little  or  no  time  for  Plotinus’  study  with  the  preliminary 
professors. 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


174 

true  founder  of  Neoplatonism.  Porphyry  tells 
us  that  Herennius,  Origen  (the  pagan),  and 
Plotinus  agreed  to  keep  the  doctrine  of  their 
master  secret,  and  that  Plotinus  held  to  this  com¬ 
pact  until  his  fellow  students  broke  it.  And  there 
is  another  argument.  Origen  (the  Christian)  was 
also  in  his  youth  a  pupil  of  Ammonius,  and  Ori- 
gen’s  theology  so  strikingly  resembles  the  meta¬ 
physics  of  Plotinus  in  many  details  that  their 
common  source  is  a  natural  inference.  As  for 
the  education  of  Plotinus  in  other  respects,  it  is 
singular  in  that  it  entirely  missed  the  rhetorical 
training  then  regnant  in  the  schools.  His  hand¬ 
writing  was  slovenly,  his  spelling  and  grammar 
faulty,  his  pronunciation  illiterate,  his  style  so 
crabbed  that  the  best  scholar  of  his  day  found  it 
unintelligible  and  the  modern  Grecian  reads  it 
with  agony. 

At  the  age  of  thirty-nine  Plotinus  joined  the 
Emperor  Gordian  in  his  eastern  expedition,  be¬ 
ing  eager  to  acquaint  himself  at  first  hand  with 
the  practice  of  philosophy  among  the  Persians 
and  Indians.  When  Gordian  lost  his  life  in  Me¬ 
sopotamia,  the  inquisitive  student  escaped  with 
some  difficulty  to  Antioch,  and  from  thence  to 
Rome,  where,  at  the  age  of  forty,  he  opened  a 
class  in  philosophy.  After  some  eighteen  years 


PLOTINUS 


175 

Porphyry  joined  him,  and  continued  in  the 
school  for  six  years.  Then  came  changes.  Por¬ 
phyry  went  away  to  Sicily,  and  other  pupils  left 
him;  friends  had  died;  the  Emperor  who  had 
protected  him  was  murdered;  he  was  afflicted 
with  a  distressing  disease,  and  so,  in  solitude  and 
suffering,  he  retired  to  Campania,  where  he  died 
in  the  second  year  of  the  Emperor  Claudius,  at 
the  age  of  sixty- six.  He  had  summoned  a  friend 
and  pupil,  the  physician  Eustochius,  to  his  bed¬ 
side  ;  but  the  friend  was  slow  in  coming,  and  the 
last  words  of  Plotinus  were  these:  “You  see  I 
am  still  waiting  for  you” ;  and  then:  “I  strive  to 
render  up  the  Divine  in  myself  to  the  Divine  in 
the  All.” 

So  far  as  we  can  judge  of  the  man,  he  had 
lived  in  harmony  with  his  dying  words ;  his  life, 
in  the  full  sense  of  the  phrase  used  by  Plato  and 
so  many  other  philosophers  of  Greece,  was  a 
continual  study  and  practice  of  death.  Such,  we 
are  told,  was  his  shame  of  existence  in  the  flesh 
that  he  would  not  speak  of  his  family  or  the  place 
of  his  birth.  When  urged  by  a  favourite  pupil  to 
allow  his  portrait  to  be  taken,  he  declined,  with 
this  excuse :  “Is  it  not  enough  to  carry  for  a  time 
this  image  which  nature  has  put  about  us  ?  And 
must  I  consent  also  to  leave  behind  me  an  image 


176  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPLIIES 

of  an  image  as  a  precious  spectacle  for  poster¬ 
ity?”  Four  separate  times,  according  to  Por¬ 
phyry,  he  was  caught  up  beyond  all  thinking 
and  all  thought  into  ecstatic  union  with  God; 
and  indeed  always  for  him  the  goal  and  the  vi¬ 
sion  lay  near  at  hand.  Through  the  metaphysic¬ 
al  jargon  that  abounds  in  his  works  we  can  see 
that  his  power  over  men  was  owing  to  a  direct 
experience  of  the  Divine;  and  when  he  spoke 
there  came  a  light  upon  his  countenance  and  a 
new  beauty  upon  his  features  as  a  testimony  of 
the  truth. 

Like  other  masterful  mystics  Plotinus  ap¬ 
peared  as  a  prophet  of  things  forgotten,  a  dis¬ 
coverer  of  things  unknown,  a  guide  in  the  spir¬ 
itual  way,  preacher  of  a  new  Evangel.  The  em¬ 
pire  in  those  troubled  days  of  Gallienus  was  al¬ 
most  at  its  lowest  ebb ;  faction  and  treason  were 
rife  in  the  Capital;  the  barbarians  were  pressing 
in  from  all  sides ;  pestilence  and  poverty  swept 
through  the  lands ;  some  terrible  and  final  catas¬ 
trophe  seemed  to  be  immanent  over  society.  In 
such  a  world  and  such  an  age,  it  is  not  strange 
that  the  call  of  peace,  the  annunciation  of  a  se¬ 
curity  that  no  present  calamities  could  shake, 
the  promise  of  liberty  for  the  soul,  should  have 
appealed  to  many  as  a  true  voice  from  heaven. 


PLOTINUS 


177 

Men  of  power  and  learning  flocked  to  the  school 
of  this  teacher  out  of  Egypt.  One  of  these,  the 
Senator  liogatianus,  went  so  far  as  to  surrender 
his  property,  emancipate  his  slaves,  renounce 
his  political  honours,  and  practise  a  life  of  reli¬ 
gious  abstinence.  The  house  of  Plotinus  was 
filled  with  boys  and  girls  who  had  been  entrust¬ 
ed  to  his  care  by  their  dying  parents.  The  em¬ 
peror  and  his  wife  so  venerated  him  that  they 
planned  to  restore  an  old  ruined  city,  once  ac¬ 
cording  to  tradition  the  home  of  (Pythagorean) 
philosophers,  and  in  this  seat,  rechristened  Pla- 
tonopolis,  to  establish  Plotinus  and  his  friends 
under  a  constitution  modeled  upon  Plato’s 
Laws.  The  scheme  fell  through,  from  jealousies 
and  intrigues  at  court  as  Porphyry  believed. 

Plotinus  was  readier  with  tongue  than  with 
pen,  and  it  was  only  under  pressure  from  his 
pupils  that  he  consented  to  put  his  philosophy 
into  writing.  During  the  period  at  Pome  before 
he  was  joined  by  Porphyry  he  composed  twenty- 
one  treatises;  then  in  the  six  years  of  Porphyry’s 
time  he  wrote  twenty-four  more,  and,  finally,  in 
the  two  closing  years  of  isolation  he  added  nine. 
These  fifty-four  books  Porphyry  edited,  and  ar¬ 
ranged  in  groups  of  nine,  making  the  six  so- 
called  Enneads. 


178  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

The  Enneads ,  composed  and  edited  in  such  a 
manner,  offer  anything  but  easy  reading.  Be¬ 
sides  the  difficulty  of  Plotinus’  language,  there 
is  a  baffling  obscurity  in  the  connexion  of  some 
of  his  ideas,  not  to  say  in  the  ideas  themselves. 
Of  recent  years  it  has  become  the  fashion  to  ex¬ 
plain  certain  fundamental  inconsistencies  by  the 
fact  that  his  books  belong  to  three  periods,  gov- 
erned  by  different  influences.3  There  is  some¬ 
thing  in  this,  no  doubt;  but  it  does  not  go  far 
enough,  and  I  fail  to  grasp  any  radical  change 
from  the  Platonic  books  of  the  first  period  to  the 
super-Platonic  books,  as  one  may  call  them,  of 
the  second  period  written  under  the  influence 
of  Porphyry.  Something  more  than  chronology 
is  involved.  There  are,  as  I  see  it,  two  modes  of 
thought  running  through  the  Enneads  from  be¬ 
ginning  to  end,  essentially  incompatible  one  with 
the  other  yet  intimately  merged  together.  One 
of  these  is  a  simple  but  profound  philosophy, 
expressing  a  genuine  psychological  experience 
and  closely  related  to  Platonism ;  the  other  is  a 
metaphysic,  of  Aristotelian  and  Stoic  stamp, 
which  not  only  suffers  the  kind  of  self-destruc¬ 
tion  that  always  attends  the  logic  of  unchecked 
rationalism,  but  works  confusion  in  the  philos- 


3Such  is  the  thesis  of  Fritz  Heinemann’s  remarkable  work, 
Plotin. 


PLOTINUS 


179 

ophy  of  which  it  is  a  parasite.  In  our  study  of 
Plotinus,  therefore,  we  shall  deal  separately,  so 
far  as  this  can  he  done,  with  his  philosophy  and 
with  his  metaphysics,  remembering  however  that 
such  a  discrimination  is  our  own  and  was  not 
made  by  him. 


II 

One  cannot  read  much  in  Plotinus,  at  least  I 
cannot,  without  feeling  that  his  philosophy  be¬ 
gins,  and  in  a  manner  ends,  in  a  strong,  almost 
a  morbid,  sense  of  the  inadequacies  of  our  mor¬ 
tal  state.  Plis  mood  is  one  of  dismay  at  the  sub¬ 
servience  of  the  soul  to  its  own  mean  and  impure 
desires,  and  at  the  unceasing  change  and  insta¬ 
bility  of  its  mundane  interests,  with  death  hover¬ 
ing  over  all.  Life,  under  these  terms,  seems  to 
him  no  more  than  “an  expense  of  spirit  in  a  waste 
of  shame.”  Such  a  feeling,  indeed,  lies  close  to 
the  origin  of  all  philosophy,  as  of  most  poetry ; 
but  with  Plotinus  this  very  discomfort  forced 
upon  his  mind  an  overwhelming  conviction  that 
there  is  that  within  us  which  stands  apart  from 
a  world  of  confusion  and  disgrace.  Whence  the 
desire  to  escape,  unless  there  is  something  that 
feels  the  desire  and  is  aware  of  its  own  immuta¬ 
ble  purity? 


i8o 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


“Plato,  thou  reasonest  well. 

It  must  be  so ;  else  whence  this  pleasing  hope, 

This  longing  after  immortality?” 

In  these  troubled  nether  regions  the  soul  is 
like  the  sea-god  Glaucus,  whom  Plato  describes 
i,  e  12  in  The  Mcpublic,  disfigured  by  clinging  shells 
and  all  kinds  of  overgrowth.  If  we  would  be  free, 
we  must  strip  the  soul  clean  of  these  excres¬ 
cences,  and,  looking  to  its  philosophy,  discern 
its  true  nature,  its  higher  contacts,  and  its  kin- 
i.ii.1  ship  with  the  divine.  Of  necessity  evils  parade 
about  the  earth,  Plotinus  says,  quoting  now  from 
the  Theaetetus ;  and  our  only  way  of  escape  is  in 
the  acquisition  of  those  celestial  qualities  where¬ 
by  we  are  made  like  unto  God.  And  so  the  phi¬ 
losophic  life,  that  experience  which  springs  from 
obedience  to  deep-lying  instincts  of  our  nature, 
will  be  a  constant  striving  of  the  soul  to  know 
itself  and  its  God.  Growth  in  wisdom  will  be 
symbolized  as  an  ascent  from  this  world  to  an- 
i,  vi,  8  other,  a  turning  away  from  what  is  “here”  to 
what  is  “there.”  For  the  fatherland,  where  the 
F ather  dwells,  is  not  here,  but  yonder.  This  as¬ 
cent  of  the  soul  will  be  by  three  paths,  the  aes¬ 
thetic,  the  ethical,  and  the  intellectual,  by  one  or 
all,  according  as  the  start,  to  use  a  distinction 
known  to  Plato,  is  from  the  perception  of  the 


PLOTINUS 


181 


beautiful  or  the  good  or  the  true.  And  in  each  of 
these  paths  there  are  three  stages. 

It  is  a  little  puzzling  at  first  to  find  so  ascetic 
a  writer  as  Plotinus,  one  so  scornful  of  the  graces 
of  language,  touched  by  a  passion  for  beauty 
such  as  few  other  seers  have  felt.  But  so  it  is ;  and 
the  great  sixth  book  of  the  first  Ennead,  together 
with  the  eighth  and  ninth  of  the  fifth  Ennead , 
fairly  quivers  with  the  aesthetic  emotion  of  the 
Pkaedrus  and  the  Symposium while  in  some  re¬ 
spects  they  enlarge  and  correct  Plato’s  theory 
where  it  is  narrowed  by  ethics.  Beauty,  as  we 
first  learn  to  feel  it,  is  addressed  to  the  eye  and 
the  ear.  But  even  here  what  attracts  the  philo¬ 
sophic  observer  is  not  merely  the  external  sym¬ 
metry  of  parts,  since  simple  things  can  be  lovely 
as  well  as  compound  things ;  the  appeal  is  rather 
by  that  within  the  object  which  is  akin  to  the  ob¬ 
serving  soul.  Beauty  shines  forth  there  where 
the  Idea  has  entered  and  made  itself  master  of 
what  otherwise  is  ugly  with  disorder  and  inco¬ 
herence  and  lawless  multiplicity ;  that  is  how  the 
material  object  is  transfigured — by  communi¬ 
cating  in  the  .Logos  that  flows  from  the  Divine.4 

VTo  this  day  there  is'  no  satisfactory  English  translation  of  the 
Enneads.  Thomas  Taylor’s  version  embraces  only  selections  and, 
though  praiseworthy  in  some  respects,  rather  blunts  the  sharp 
outlines  of  the  original.  K.  S.  Guthrie  has  published  a  complete 
translation,  for  which  one  must  applaud  his  courage;  but,  one 


182 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


But  there  are  purer  and  loftier  beauties  than 
those  of  the  eye  and  the  ear,  ravishing  powers 
which  are  hidden  from  the  many.  F or  as  it  is  not 
for  those  who  have  been  born  blind  to  speak  of 
the  graceful  forms  of  the  material  world  wrapt 
for  them  in  darkness,  so  there  is  a  beauty  of  con¬ 
duct  and  learning  and  all  that  order  of  which  it 
behoves  those  to  hold  silence  who  have  never 
cared  for  such  things;  nor  may  they  tell  of  the 
splendours  of  virtue  who  have  never  known  the 
face  of  justice  and  temperance,  beautiful  be¬ 
yond  the  lights  of  evening  and  of  dawn.  Such 
vision  is  reserved  for  those  who  see  with  the  eye 
of  the  soul;  and  seeing  they  will  rejoice,  and  a 
desire  will  fall  upon  them,  which  is  not  pain, 
deeper  than  all  that  colour  and  moulded  shape 
can  ever  stir. 

And  still  above  rides  Beauty — the  solitary- 
dwellingExistence,  the  Good,  the  unique  source, 
the  secret  hope  of  every  heart.  And  he  that  shall 
know  this  vision — with  what  passion  of  love  shall 
he  not  be  seized,  with  what  wondering  delight, 
what  longing  to  be  molten  into  one  with  it! 

regrets  to  add,  it  so  teems  with  inaccuracies  as  to  be  utterly 
untrustworthy.  Stephen  Mackenna  has  completed  a  careful  and 
scholarly  version  of  the  three  first  Enneads.  He  is  free  and 
sometimes  unduly  quaint,  but  his  work,  when  finished,  will  be  a 
notable  addition  to  our  philosophical  literature.  In  my  para¬ 
phrases  and  quotations  of  Plotinus  I  have  drawn  largely  on  this 
version,  so  far  as  it  extends. 


PLOTINUS 


183 

Surely,  if  he  that  has  not  yet  seen  this  Being 
must  hunger  for  it  as  for  all  his  welfare,  he  that 
knows  will  be  stricken  by  a  salutary  terror,  flood¬ 
ed  with  unspeakable  gladness. 

But  what  must  one  do?  How  shall  one  pre¬ 
pare  one’s  self  for  the  arduous  path?  As  there 
are  purifications  and  the  laying  aside  of  gar¬ 
ments  for  those  who  approach  the  holy  myster¬ 
ies,  so  it  is  with  those  who  would  ascend  to  the 
sanctuary  of  Beauty.  He  that  has  strength,  let 
him  arise,  and  withdraw"  into  himself,  leaving 
without  all  that  the  eyes  know,  turning  away 
from  the  delight  of  fair  bodies  that  once  en¬ 
thralled  him.  These  he  will  no  longer  pursue, 
for  he  knows  them  to  be  copies,  vestiges,  shad¬ 
ows,  and  his  desire  is  now  towards  the  reality. 
And  so,  as  if  lightened  of  a  heavy  burden,  he 
shall  mount  with  swift  and  easy  steps.  But  it  is 
otherwise  with  those  who  cling  to  the  pleasures 
of  the  flesh.  For  if  any  one  follows  what  is  like 
a  beautiful  shape  playing  over  water — is  there 
not  a  myth  telling  in  symbol  of  such  a  dupe,  how 
he  sank  into  the  depths  of  the  current  and  was 
swept  away  into  nothingness?  It  is  thus  with  him 
who  pursues  the  charm  of  material  forms,  for¬ 
getful  that  they  are  images  fleeting  over  the 
abyss ;  he  sinks  down,  not  in  body  but  in  soul,  to 


184  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

depths  of  infinite  darkness  and  sadness,  sight¬ 
less  himself  to  have  commerce  only  with  blind 
shadows. 

The  aesthetic  ascent  proceeds  from  the  per¬ 
ception  of  visible  objects  of  beauty  to  the  invisi¬ 
ble  but  gracious  acts  of  the  soul,  and  from  these 
to  the  uttermost  fountain  of  all  that  is  fair  and 
lovely.  It  is  almost  pure  Platonism,  with  how¬ 
ever  two  important  exceptions.  Plato  nowhere 
gives  a  hint  of  that  mystical  vision  wherein  at 
last  the  seer  and  the  seen  merge  together  in  one 
indistinguishable  act  of  objectless  contempla¬ 
tion.  Of  this  dubious  development  we  shall  have 
more  to  say  elsewhere.  In  another  direction  Plo¬ 
tinus  made  a  valuable  correction  to  the  doctrine 
of  Ideas,  and  may  be  said,  without  quibbling,  to 
have  been  more  Platonic  than  Plato.  Art,  it  is 
well  known,  except  under  the  most  stringent 
discipline  was  always  a  matter  more  or  less  sus¬ 
pect  to  Plato,  and  his  banishment  of  the  poets 
from  his  ideal  commonwealth  was  a  theme  that 
racked  the  invention  of  his  apologetic  admirers. 
This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  at  length  what 
has  generally  seemed  an  aberration  in  the  most 
Homeric  of  all  philosophers,  as  he  was  called. 
The  point  here  to  be  observed  is  that  in  the  tenth 
book  of  The  Republic  he  excused  his  suspicion 


PLOTINUS 


185 

of  art  by  describing  the  artist  as  merely  an  imi¬ 
tator  of  imitations,  and  therefore  as  twice  re¬ 
moved  from  Ideas  and  the  realm  of  immediate 
truth  with  which  the  philosopher  is  concerned. 
Why,  one  asks,  did  not  Plato,  taught  by  his  own 
technique,  understand  that  the  great  artist  has 
his  eye  fastened  not  on  nature  or  manufactured 
objects  as  on  an  opaque  veil,  but  is  really  look¬ 
ing  through  these  to  the  Ideas  behind  the  cur¬ 
tain?  Why  did  he  not  see  that  the  artist  is  no 
slave  of  nature,  but  at  once  her  lover  and,  as  it 
were,  her  corrector  and  finisher,  and  more  truly 
a  maker  than  he  who  fashions  works  of  utility 
with  his  hands?  This  is  the  question  asked  and 
answered  by  Plotinus;  and  by  so  doing  he  jus¬ 
tified  Platonism  as  the  artist’s  philosophy  par 
excellence .5 

s Enneads  V,  viii,  1;  ix,  2,  11. — Dean  Inge,  II,  215,  observes: 
“Here  he  [Plotinus]  agrees  with  Philostratus,  who  in  an  epoch- 
making  passage  [Vit.  Apoll.  vi,  19]  says  that  great  works  of  art 
are  produced  not  by  imitation  (the  Aristotelian  but  by 

imagination  (<pavTa<xla) ,  ‘a  wiser  creator  than  imagination  [sic, 
imitation],  for  imitation  copies  what  it  has  seen,  imagination 
what  it  has  not  seen.’  The  true  artist  fixes  his  eyes  on  the  arche¬ 
typal  Logoi,  and  tries  to  draw  inspiration  from  the  spiritual 
power  which  created  the  forms  of  bodily  beauty.  .  .  .  This  is  a 
real  advance  upon  Plato  and  Aristotle.” — It  may  be  said  that 
this  theory  of  art  was1  not  entirely  ignored  by  Plato,  as  e.g., 
Sophist  267c;  but  such  a  passage  cannot  weigh  against  the  com¬ 
mon  trend  of  his  criticism.  James  Adam,  in  his  note  on  Republic 
598  a,  enters  the  defence  that  “Plato’s  own  conception  of  a  tran¬ 
scendent  self-existing  Beauty  has  proved  an  inexhaustible  foun¬ 
tain  of  inspiration  to  some  of  the  greatest  artists,  notably,  for 
instance,  in  connexion  with  the  Platonic  Academy  at  Florence 


186  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

It  will  have  been  observed  that  in  the  middle 
stage  of  the  aesthetic  ascent  comeliness  and  vir¬ 
tue  clasp  hands,  and  that  in  the  last  stage  they 
are  quite  merged  together  in  the  Beautiful  and 
the  Good,  which  are  one.  And  so  the  transition 
is  easy  to  the  second  of  the  three  ways,  the  ethic- 
i,  li.i  al.  We  attain  likeness  to  God,  Plotinus  says, 
quoting  Plato,  by  becoming  just  and  holy  and 
wise.  But,  he  adds,  such  a  precept  seems  to  im¬ 
ply  that  our  human  virtues  are  also  qualities  of 
the  divine  Being;  and  how  can  that  be?  Is  God 
wise  by  reasoning  as  we  reason,  or  brave  because 

in  the  days  of  Michel  Angelo.”  And  this  is  abundantly  true.  But 
on  the  whole  E.  J.  Urwick,  in  the  eleventh  chapter  of  his  Mes¬ 
sage  of  Plato,  has  said  the  truer  thing:  “Not  so,  Plato  would 
reply;  this  is  art’s  great  illusion.  The  ecstasy  of  the  art-inspired 
soul  is  not  the  ecstasy  of  God-knowledge.  It  is  only  an  emotional 
shadow  of  the  true  ecstasy — fleeting,  impermanent,  unreal.  Dan¬ 
gerous,  too,  as  are  all  extreme  emotional  states.  For  if  you  think 
these  are  real,  you  will  never  reach  the  true  vision  of  God.  .  .  . 
And  the  penalty  of  all  emotional  states  will  overtake  you.  As  cer¬ 
tainly  as  emotion  is  unstable,  so  certainly  will  reaction  follow  on 
realization.  You  will  rise  to  the  heights  only  to  fall  again  to 
deeper  depths.  .  .  .  Make  it  [art],  if  you  will,  the  basis  of  all 
your  early  religious  education:  make  it,  as  you  must,  the  ground¬ 
work  of  the  good  environment  in  which  the  learning  soul  should 
live.  Treat  it  in  this  way,  as  the  servant  of  the  spiritual  life,  and 
its  dangers  are  gone.  But  if  it  is1  protested,  as  it  is  today,  and  as 
it  was  beginning  to  be  among  the  Greeks  in  Plato’s  time,  that 
art  cannot  reach  its  highest  development  in  any  subordination 
whatever,  but  must  be  free — a  cult  in  itself,  an  end  in  itself — 
then,  like  everything  else  which  makes  such  a  claim,  it  must  be 
‘bowed  out’  of  the  good  life.”  Mr.  Urwick’s  book  has  been  sharp¬ 
ly  criticised,  and  justly.  I  too  would  repudiate  certain  aspects 
of  his  Oriental  mysticism  as  applied  to  Plato ;  but  I  think,  never¬ 
theless,  that  he  has  done  a  work  of  vital  importance  as  a  correc¬ 
tive  of  the  Platonism  prevalent  in  Germany  and  England  today. 


PLOTINUS 


187 

he  has  aught  to  fear,  or  temperate  because  He 
has  passions  to  restrain,  or  just  because  He  has 
aught  to  withhold?  No,  if  virtue  abides  in  the 
divine  world,  it  is  not  such  as  we  practise  in  these 
trammels  of  the  flesh  and  amid  these  counter¬ 
claims  of  individual  souls ;  or  rather,  let  us  say, 
virtue  is  here,  while  its  source  and  law  are  there, 
and  participation  we  become  like  to  that 
which  is  not  like  to  us.  The  moral  assimilation 
to  God,  therefore,  means  not  a  mere  growth  in 
kind,  a  change  in  degree,  so  to  speak,  but  de¬ 
mands  an  alteration  in  nature  and  a  conversion 
of  the  soul. 

As  the  soul  is  evil  by  interfusing  with  the  body,  i,  a,  s 

and  sharing  the  body’s- moods  and  thinking  the 
body’s  thoughts,  so  its  first  step  in  goodness  will 
be  by  usurping  the  command  in  this  partnership, 
and  by  imposing  measure  and  order  upon  in¬ 
stincts  which  of  themselves  are  disorderly  and 
measureless.  Hence  the  civic  virtues,  as  Plato  1,11,2 
calls  them,  the  limit  and  bound  set  upon  our  de¬ 
sires,  the  removal  of  false  judgments,  the  re¬ 
spect  for  equality.  And  this  is  the  beginning  of 
the  flight  from  the  world  and  of  the  great  pur¬ 
gation.  The  soul  will  rise  to  the  second  stage  of 
goodness  by  thinking  its  own  thoughts,  which  is 
wisdom,  and  by  feeling  nought  for  the  body’s 


i88 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


sake,  which  is  temperance,  and  by  fearing  not 
its  separation  from  the  body,  which  is  fortitude, 
and  by  holding  its  lower  members  in  subjection 
to  reason,  which  is  righteousness  or  justice.  By 
1,11,5  this  purgation  of  virtue  the  passions  are  dis¬ 
pelled — anger,  fear,  and  the  like,  with  grief  and 
all  its  kin.  The  soul  is  disengaged  and  set  free ; 
it  lives  then  not  virtuously,  but  in  contact  with 
the  principle  of  virtue ;  it  is  not  measured,  but  is 
itself  the  law  of  measure ;  it  is  not  subject  to  rea¬ 
son,  hut  is  itself  reason. 

That  is  the  second  stage  of  the  ethical  ascent, 
attaining  which  the  soul  has  become  like  to  God, 
dwelling  in  undivided  contemplation,  which  is 
possession,  of  all  beauty  of  the  Ideal  virtues.  But 
still  beyond,  in  the  philosophy  of  Plotinus,  lies 
that  highest  reach  wherein  likeness  to  God  is 
t,  vu,  i  transformed  into  identity  with  the  Good.  To  that 
utter  point  are  directed  all  aspirations,  all  loves, 
every  act;  and  therefore,  when  the  soul  has 
mounted  to  this  apex  of  its  course,  it  no  longer 
aspires,  no  longer  loves,  no  longer  acts,  having 
no  longer  an  end  outside  of  itself ;  nor  is  there 
any  division  within  itself  of  desire  and  desired, 
of  seer  and  seen.  It  abides  in  its  own  peace ;  it  is 
not  good,  but  Goodness. 

There  are  several  methods  of  explaining  the 


PLOTINUS 


189 

intellectual  ascent,  but  the  easiest  of  these  per¬ 
haps,  and  that  which  shows  most  clearly  the  re¬ 
lation  of  this  experience  to  the  moral  and  aes¬ 
thetic,  will  begin  with  the  activity  of  the  soul  as 
it  contemplates  the  external  world  of  sight  and 
sound.  Out  of  a  confused  mass  of  impressions 
and  sensations  that  follow  one  another  in  time, 
the  soul,  as  a  thinking  mind,  discovers  a  seeming 
order  in  disorder.  Gradually  the  plan  and  pur¬ 
pose  of  things  stand  out  more  sharply,  the  mind 
is  stirred  to  admiration  at  the  beauty  and  right¬ 
ness  and  wisdom  of  the  whole,  and  begins  to  re¬ 
flect  more  deeply  on  the  significance  of  what  it 
sees,  and  on  its  own  place  amid  the  kaleidoscop¬ 
ic  phenomena  of  nature.  It  becomes  more  and 
more  aware  of  some  power  within  nature  that 
moves  and  governs  in  conformity  with  its,  the 
soul’s,  own  modes  of  thinking.  The  centre  of  in¬ 
terest  shifts  from  contemplation  of  the  world  to 
the  act  of  contemplation  itself.  And  so  by  de¬ 
grees  the  reality  of  life  will  seem  to  be  not  a  soul 
reflecting  on  phenomena  outside  of  itself  in  an 
impenetrable  sphere  of  time  and  space,  but  the 
inner  activity  of  a  pure  intelligence,  or  Nous,6 

gNous  is  the  Hellenistic  term  for  reason  in  this  higher  order  of 
mental  activity.  Noumena  are  the  Ideas  of  the  Nous,  the  objects 
of  its  inner  reflection  as  distinguished  from  phenomena  as  ob¬ 
jects  of  contemplation  outside  of  itself.  NoUa  are  the  same  as 
noumena,  but  rather  more  objectively  considered,  more  distinct, 
that  is,  from  the  act  of  reflection.  It  is  very  hard  to  avoid  the 
use  of  these  technical  terms. 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


190 

communing  with  its  own  Ideas,  or  noumena,  of 
which  the  signs  of  intelligence  displayed  in  the 
world  are  an  accidental  outflow.  But  these  nou¬ 
mena  are  in  the  Nous,  of  the  Nous  itself;  “up¬ 
ward”  and  “inward”  are  synonymous  terms  to 
the  Neoplatonist;  and  the  intellectual  ascent 
may  thus  be  described  as  a  passage  from  the  soul 
engaged  in  discursive  reasoning  to  the  soul  en¬ 
gaged  in  intuition  of  its  own  multiple  powers. 

But  there  is  a  step  beyond  this,  when  the  mind 
begins  to  consider  that  these  noumena  are  not 
impressions  forced  upon  it  by  some  external 
necessity,  as  the  phenomena  were,  or  seemed  to 
be,  but  are  its  own  free  activity,  and  that,  by 
withdrawing  this  activity,  it  can  plunge,  as  it 
were,  into  itself,  passing  thus  from  the  one-many 
to  the  One.  Here  all  disquiet  ceases.  Here  all 
division,  all  multiplicity,  come  to  an  end;  the 
soul  is  no  longer  an  intelligence  communing  with 
its  Ideas,  it  is  not  even  an  intelligence  reflecting 
upon  itself  (for  such  reflection  still  implies  par¬ 
tition  and  duality),  but  simply  Itself,  the  Ab¬ 
solute  One  which  is  not  thinking  or  thought,  hut 
the  goal  of  all  thinking  and  thought. 

The  end  of  knowledge  is  not  unlike  a  self- 
denying  ordinance,  where  truth  and  goodness 
and  beauty  have  dissolved  together  by  losing 


PLOTINUS 


191 

their  distinctions,7  and  by  this  loss  have  tran¬ 
scended  whatever  we  can  name  or  think  of  as 
existence.  The  three  ways  by  which  the  goal  is 
reached  might  be  likened  to  three  mountain 
paths  that  start  from  different  points  at  the 
base,  and  as  they  ascend  draw  ever  nearer  and 
nearer  together.  As  the  paths  approach,  the 
climbers  thereon  catch  glimpses  of  one  another 
in  the  open  places,  and  hail  one  another  with 
cries  of  greeting  and  encouragement;  until,  at 
the  last,  they  meet  on  the  summit  in  the  wide 
light  and  the  free  air,  with  nothing  about  them, 
nothing  above  them,  save  a  vast  emptiness.  There 
is  nothing  more  to  say  but  the  Neti,  neti “It  is 
not  so,  not  so,”  of  the  Hindus.  Plotinus  himself, 
we  are  told,  had  suffered  the  ecstasy  four  sepa¬ 
rate  times ;  and  after  the  passages  on  beauty,  in 
which  his  language  glows  with  a  fire  caught  from 
Plato,  he  is  most  impressive  when,  f  orgetting  the 
difference  of  the  ways,  he  strives  to  convey  some 
intimation  of  the  final  vision  wherein,  seeing  all, 
one  sees  nothing.  In  his  arrangement  of  the  En- 
neads  Porphyry  has  appropriately  placed  last 
the  hook  which  may  be  called  the  Apocalypse  of 
our  western  Bible  of  mysticism.  This  is  the  con¬ 
clusion  : 


7At  times,  however,  Plotinus  repudiates  such  an  identification, 
and  insists  that  the  Good  is  above  the  Beautiful. 


192 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


“What,  then,  is  the  One  and  what  Its  nature? 
We  cannot  be  surprised  to  find  It  difficult  to  tell 
of,  since  even  Existence  and  the  Ideas  resist  our 
penetration  though  all  our  knowing  is  based  up¬ 
on  the  Ideas.  The  further  the  human  Soul,  or 
Mind,  ventures  towards  the  Formless  (to  what 
is  either  above  or  below  Form  and  Idea),  the 
more  is  it  troubled ;  it  becomes  itself,  as  it  were, 
undefined,  unshaped,  in  face  of  the  shifting  va¬ 
riety  before  it,  and  so  it  is  utterly  unable  to  take 
hold;  it  slips  away;  it  feels  that  it  can  grasp 
nothing.  It  is  at  pain  in  these  alien  places,  and 
often  is  glad  to  give  up  all  its  purpose  and  to  fall 
back  upon  the  solid  ground  of  the  sense-grasped 
world  and  there  take  rest.  .  .  . 

“Our  greatest  difficulty  is  that  consciousness 
of  the  One  comes  not  by  knowledge,  not  even  by 
such  an  intuitive  Intellection  as  possesses  us  of 
the  lower  members  of  the  Intellectual  Order, 
but  by  an  actual  Presence  superior  to  any  know¬ 
ing.  The  Soul,  when  it  deals  with  matters  of 
knowledge,  suffers  a  certain  decline  from  its 
Unity,  for  knowing  is  still  an  act  of  reasoning, 
and  reasoning  is  a  multiple  act,  an  act  which  leads 
the  Soul  down  to  the  sphere  of  number  and  mul¬ 
tiplicity.  The  Soul,  therefore,  must  rise  above 
knowledge,  above  all  its  wandering  from  its 
Unity;  it  must  hold  itself  aloof  from  all  know¬ 
ing  and  from  all  the  knowable  and  from  the 
very  contemplation  of  Beauty  and  Good,  for  all 
Beauty  and  Good  are  later  than  this,  springing 


PLOTINUS 


193 

from  This  as  the  daily  light  springs  from  the 
sun.  .  .  . 

“The  Supreme  is  not  absent  from  any  one — 
and  yet  is  absent  from  all ;  present  everywhere 
It  is  absent  except  only  to  those  that  are  pre¬ 
pared  to  receive  It,  those  that  have  wrought 
themselves  to  harmony  with  It,  that  have  seized 
It  and  hold  It  by  virtue  of  their  own  Likeness 
to  It  and  by  the  power  in  themselves  akin  to  the 
power  which  rays  from  It.  These  and  these  only, 
whose  Soul  is  again  as  it  was  when  it  came  from 
out  of  the  Divine,  are  free  of  what  Vision  of  the 
Supreme  Its  mighty  nature  allows.  .  .  . 

“It  indeed  does  not  aspire  after  us,  in  order 
that  It  may  be  conversant  with  us ;  but  we  aspire 
after  It,  in  order  that  we  may  revolve  about  It. 
We  indeed  perpetually  revolve  about  It,  but  we 
do  not  always  behold  It.  As  a  band  of  singers, 
however,  though  it  moves  about  the  coryphaeus, 
may  be  diverted  to  the  survey  of  something  for¬ 
eign  to  the  choir  [and  thus  become  disobedient], 
but  when  it  converts  itself  to  him,  sings  well, 
and  truly  subsists  about  him ; — thus  also  we  per¬ 
petually  revolve  about  the  Principle  of  all  things, 
even  when  we  are  perfectly  loosened  from  It, 
and  have  no  longer  a  knowledge  of  It.  Nor  do 
we  always  look  to  It;  but  when  we  behold  It, 
then  we  obtain  the  end  of  our  wishes,  and  rest 
[from  our  search  after  felicity].  Then  also  we 
are  no  longer  discordant  but  form  a  truly  divine 
dance  about  It.  .  .  . 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


194 

“The  Soul  restored  to  Likeness  goes  to  its 
Like  and  holds  of  the  Supreme  all  that  Soul  can 
hold,  ...  that  which  is  before  all  things  that 
are,  over  and  apart  from  all  the  universe  of  Ex¬ 
istence.  This  is  not  to  say  that  in  this  plunging 
into  the  Divine  the  Soul  reaches  nothingness :  it 
is  when  it  is  evil  that  it  sinks  towards  nothing¬ 
ness  :  by  this  way,  this  that  leads  to  the  Good,  it 
finds  itself ;  when  it  is  the  Divine  it  is  truly  it¬ 
self,  no  longer  a  thing  among  things.  It  aban¬ 
dons  Being  to  become  a  Beyond-Being  when  its 
converse  is  in  the  Supreme.  He  who  knows  him¬ 
self  to  have  become  such,  knows  himself  now  an 
image  of  the  Supreme ;  and  when  the  phantasm 
has  returned  to  the  Original,  the  journey  is 
achieved.  Suppose  him  to  fall  again  from  the 
Vision,  he  will  call  up  the  virtue  within  him  and, 
seeing  himself  all  glorious  again,  he  will  take  his 
upward  flight  once  more,  through  virtue  to  the 
Divine  Mind,  through  the  Wisdom  There  to  the 
Supreme.  And  this  is  the  life  of  the  Gods,  and 
of  Godlike  men,  a  life  without  love  of  the  world, 
a  flight  of  the  Alone  to  the  Alone.”8 

Ill 

Such  is  the  ascent,  and  such  the  consummation 
of  blessedness.  It  will  have  been  observed  that 

8The  fourth  paragraph  of  this  passage  is  taken  from  the  trans¬ 
lation  of  Thomas  Taylor,  the  rest  from  the  appendix  to  Mr.  Mac- 
kenna’s  first  volume. 


PLOTINUS 


195 

this  report  of  the  upward  way  contains  two  re¬ 
lated  but  not  identical  elements.  In  the  first 
place,  and  essentially,  it  gives  the  actual  psycho¬ 
logical  experience  of  the  man  Plotinus,  who 
dwelt  in  Rome  at  a  certain  time,  and  who,  amid 
the  distractions  and  fears  of  a  dissolving  world, 
sought  for  himself  and  for  others  a  plan  of  se¬ 
curity  and  liberty.  That,  in  a  manner,  is  not 
Neoplatonism  alone,  but  the  burden  of  all  phi¬ 
losophy  ;  for  the  world  is  always  distracted,  al¬ 
ways  filled  with  alarms  and  threatenings,  and 
always  the  cry  is  to  find  a  refuge  from  its  per¬ 
turbations  ;  the  goal  of  wisdom  is  always  an  ata- 
raxy  in  one  form  or  another.  With  Plotinus  the 
search  led  inwards,  into  himself;  and  through 
all  his  writings,  mixed  with  much  that  is  ex¬ 
traneous  and  with  some  things  that  perplex  the 
mind,  there  runs  the  note  of  wonder  and  joy  of 
one  who  has  discovered  the  majesty  and  ever¬ 
lasting  value  of  his  own  soul.  The  ascent  to  the 
height,  the  journey  to  the  centre,  is  no  more 
than  a  figurative  expression  of  this  discovery, 
which  indeed  is  philosophy.  Let  a  man,  he  says  iv,  vii,  10 
to  those  who  doubt,  look  to  his  soul  stripped  of 
all  that  clings  to  her,  rather,  let  him  consider 
himself  and  that  which  veritably  concerns  him, 
and  surely  he  shall  see  within  himself  a  cosmos 


196  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

all  of  mind  and  all  of  light,  illuminated,  as  it 
were,  from  a  central  flame  of  Goodness  which 
is  the  unexhausted  fountain  of  outpouring  truth 
and  joy.  His  desire  will  be  set  no  longer  upon 
the  visible  and  dying  things  of  earth,  but  upon 
eternal,  unbodied  realities.  Then  shall  he  under¬ 
stand  the  words  of  Empedocles :  “Hail  and  fare¬ 
well,  henceforth  I  am  for  you  a  deathless  god.” 
The  way  of  purification  is  to  the  knowledge  of 
our  better  selves,  and  our  true  science  is  within. 
F or  the  soul  does  not  run  abroad  when  she  would 
have  vision  of  temperance  and  righteousness, 
but  sits  at  home,  and  so,  in  self-contemplation 
and  in  recollection  of  what  she  has  been,  beholds 
those  virtues  as  fair  statues  of  gold,  standing 
there,  wiped  clean  of  every  stain. 

That  is  the  personal  experience  at  the  heart  of 
the  Plotinian  philosophy.  And  with  it  goes  the 
belief  that  a  man’s  soul  is  not  isolated  in  a  world 
with  which  it  has  no  bonds  of  sympathy,  that 
philosophy  is  not  private  only  but  cosmic.  The 
ascent  is  not  made  in  a  vast  emptiness  of  unreal¬ 
ity,  but  our  inner  change  means  at  each  step  the 
consciousness  of  a  new  environment  and  of  a 
new  law,  or,  if  you  choose,  a  different  aspect  of 
the  one  all-embracing  law.  The  first  awakening 
brings  with  it  the  hint  of  a  world-soul,  of  which 


IV,  ix,  5 


PLOTINUS 


197 

our  individual  soul  is  a  member,  and  which  is  re¬ 
lated  to  the  visible  universe  as  our  soul  is  asso¬ 
ciated  with  the  body,  though  without  the  disa¬ 
bilities  of  fragmentary  existence.  By  that  know¬ 
ledge  we  feel  our  withdrawal  into  ourselves  to 
be  no  selfish  or  sullen  isolation,  but  a  richer  com¬ 
munion  with  the  innumerable  souls  of  others 
who,  like  us,  are  members  of  one  sentient  life. 
We  rise  higher  into  a  larger  sphere  of  the  senses, 
wherein  we  see  without  distraction  and  hear 
without  perturbation,  being  at  once  in  the  world 
but  not  broken  by  its  multiplicity.9  And  then,  as 
we  withdraw  from  the  senses,  we  are  rapt  into  a 
noetic  sphere,  where  the  intuitive  faculty  of  the 
soul,  identified  now  with  the  cosmic  Nous,  en¬ 
joys  the  contemplation  of  those  eternal  Ideas 
of  which  the  visible  world  is,  as  it  were,  an  image 
hovering  like  a  mirage  over  the  abyss  of  chaos. 
Last  of  all,  the  ecstatic  trance,  in  which  the  dis¬ 
tinction  between  the  mind  and  its  Ideas,  the  self 
and  self-knowledge,  passes  away,  is  not,  so  Plo¬ 
tinus  would  have  us  believe,  a  mere  swooning 
and  eclipse  of  the  soul  while  the  world  goes 
booming  on,  but  a  flight  of  the  Alone  to  the 
Alone.  Sense  and  spiritual  contemplation  and 

9This  conception  of  a  soul  in  the  universe  runs  through  Platonic, 
Stoic,  and  Neoplatonic  philosophy.  See  Philebus  30  a;  Arnim, 
Fragm.  II,  1015;  Plotinus'  IV,  iii,  7;  The  Religion  of  Plato  116. 


198  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

mystic  union  are  psychological  states  corre¬ 
sponding  to  cosmic  climes,  and  growth  in  self- 
knowledge  may  be  described  also  as  a  journey 
of  the  soul  through  the  universe  to  its  far-off 
home.  Only  this  should  be  noted,  that  the  actual 
attainment  of  the  noetic  state,  when  once  the  soul 
has  been  released  from  the  bondage  of  rebirth, 
brings  a  cessation  of  what  we  regard  as  personal 
existence.  The  heaven  of  the  Nous  has  no  place 
for  memory  of  the  soul’s  past  lives,  and  Being 
there  is  not  an  immortality  that  denotes  con¬ 
scious  continuity;  it  is  rather  a  blissful  forget¬ 
fulness.  And  the  last  stage  of  identification  with 
the  One  is  a  complete  loss  of  identity. 

But  why  does  the  soul  attain  to  its  native  goal 
so  seldom,  if  indeed  it  attain  at  all,  and  why  does 
it  sink  away?  Why,  if  that  ecstatic  union,  as  it 
feels,  signifies  its  true  being,  has  it  ever  de¬ 
scended  to  these  earthly  cares  and  distractions  ? 
These  were  questions  that  Plotinus  drew  from 
his  own  experience,  and  answered  as  best  he 
could. 

iv,  vm,  i  Often,  he  says,  when  I  awake  out  of  the  slum¬ 

ber  of  this  life,  and  from  an  alien  world  enter 
into  myself,  I  am  amazed  at  the  beauty  of  what 
I  behold.  Then  I  begin  to  live,  and  am  conscious 
of  a  divine  energy,  and  know  that  in  that  higher 


PLOTINUS 


199 

sphere  I  am  truly  myself  as  I  am  at  one  with 
God.  But  after  a  little  the  peace  is  broken,  the 
vision  fades,  and  once  more  I  am  bound  to  the 
senses  and  a  slave  to  circumstance.  Why  this  de¬ 
scent,  this  submission  to  the  will  of  the  flesh? 
Thinking  of  these  things  I  recall  what  Hera¬ 
clitus  taught  long  ago:  the  inevitableness  of 
change,  the  way  up  and  the  way  down,  the  re¬ 
laxation  that  comes  with  change,  the  labour  and 
weariness  of  abiding  in  one  state.  I  remember 
the  belief  of  Empedocles  and  Pythagoras  and 
many  others,  that  our  fall  hitherward  was  a  pen¬ 
alty  for  sin,  and  our  life  in  the  body  an  incarcer¬ 
ation  of  the  soul.  And  then  I  think  of  the  writ¬ 
ings  of  Plato,  which  contain  many  beautiful  say¬ 
ings  about  the  soul,  but  in  this  matter  seem  to 
express  two  diverse  views.  For  at  one  time  he 
too  speaks  of  our  existence  here  as  of  an  im¬ 
prisonment,  and  describes  this  world  as  a  dark 
cavern  where  the  soul  lies  in  chains,  awaiting  its 
release  and  the  journey  upwards  to  the  free  air 
and  the  blessed  light  of  the  sun.  Yet  elsewhere, 
in  the  Timaeus ,  this  same  Plato  has  fair  speech 
of  the  world,  and  declares  that  God  in  His  be¬ 
nevolence  sent  the  souls  hither  in  order  that  the 
cosmos  might  be  perfected  as  a  divine  creature 


200 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


and  a  happy  duplication  of  the  Ideal  pattern 
whereon  His  own  eyes  are  set. 

How  is  this  discrepancy  to  be  reconciled? 
iv,  viii,  2  Plotinus  thinks  we  see  a  contradiction  because 
we  forget  that  there  are  two  modes  of  govern¬ 
ing  and  of  exercising  care.  One  is  the  royal  way, 
when  the  ruler  issues  commands  and  calls  forth 
order  and  beauty  by  the  very  power  of  his  word, 
but  himself  needs  not  to  stretch  out  his  hand  to 
the  task.  Another  way  is  that  of  the  servant, 
who  is  merged  in  his  work  and  soiled  by  base  as¬ 
sociations.  Now  the  world-soul  takes  the  royal 
way,  and,  while  shaping  and  moderating  the 
chaos  of  matter,  holds  itself  apart  with  clean 
hands  and  unperturbed  gaze,  and  never  leaves 
the  company  of  the  high  gods.  But  these  indi¬ 
vidual  souls  of  ours,  though  they  also  by  right 
share  in  the  blessed  life  of  Ideas,  succumb  weak¬ 
ly  to  the  task  imposed  upon  them,  and,  falling 
from  communion  with  the  world-soul,  become 
immersed  in  a  multitude  of  material  cares  and 
chained  to  these  bodies  as  squalid  and  complain¬ 
ing  captives. 

For  the  reason  of  this  falling  away  Plotinus 
has  two  theories,  which  may  at  first  seem  incom¬ 
patible,  but  are  really  not  so.  While  the  indi- 
iv,  viii,  4  vidual  souls  are  joined  with  the  world-soul  they 


4 


PLOTINUS  201 

exercise  lordship  over  the  kingdom  of  matter 
without  passion  or  taint.  But,  according  to  one 
theory,  they  become  weary  of  this  communion, 
and  their  eyes  grow  tired  with  the  steady  vision 
of  Ideas  which  this  passionless  lordship  demands. 

They  long  for  that  ease  in  alteration  of  which 
Heraclitus  spoke,  and  so  break  loose  from  their 
source,  and  in  the  weakness  of  their  individual 
existence  sink  down  to  the  solid  staying-ground 
of  these  bodies.  Elsewhere  the  cause  of  the  sep-  v,  i,i 
aration  and  the  fall  is  laid,  not  to  weariness,  but 
to  a  spirit  of  pride  and  a  lust  of  the  souls  to  be 
themselves  and  their  own  masters.  In  either  case 
it  is  clear  that  Plotinus  is  merely  translating  into 
a  mythological  event  what  he  knew  to  be  the 
last  discoverable  source  of  evil  in  the  soul, — that 
slackness  which  succumbs  to  the  fatigue  of  hold¬ 
ing  fast  to  higher  things  and  turns  to  the  ease  and 
comfort  of  change,  the  vanity  that  flatters  us  in¬ 
to  believing  we  have  no  other  end  than  to  be  our¬ 
selves  and  to  follow  our  inclinations.  Slackness 
and  vanity,  these  together  are  the  dark  remote 
origin  of  our  guilt ;  they  are  the  cause  of  the  fall, 
and  then  of  the  misbehaviour  of  the  soul  amid  the 
trials  which  it  has  brought  upon  itself,  whereby 
it  is  plunged  ever  deeper  into  the  abyss  of  evil. 
Happy  the  soul  that  takes  the  penalties  of  life 


202 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


for  discipline,  and,  learning  wisdom  and  grace 
by  suffering,  turns  again  to  the  long  ascent.10 


IV 

So  far,  by  a  process  of  separation,  which,  as  I 
have  said,  does  some  violence  to  the  literary 
method  of  Plotinus,  we  have  been  considering 
his  pure  philosophy  and  mythology,  that  is  to 
say,  his  analysis  of  an  actual  and,  up  to  a  certain 
point,  normal  experience,  followed  by  the  in¬ 
evitable  and,  if  properly  understood,  legitimate 
hypostatizing  of  the  stages  of  this  experience  as 
cosmic  realities.  The  conversion  of  the  soul  from 
interest  in  the  dead  realm  of  phenomena  to  the 
living  world  of  Ideas  is  a  simple  daily  occurrence 
of  which  all  men  have  a  more  or  less  vivid  sense. 
So,  too,  the  feeling  that  the  evil  for  which  we  are 
responsible  arises  from  an  indolent  and  egotistic 
yielding  to  the  pressure  of  circumstance  and  the 
drifting  tides  of  temperament.  To  this  extent 
Neoplatonism  is  a  fair  development  of  the  Pla¬ 
tonic  philosophy;  nor,  to  say  the  least,  can  I 
see  any  harm  in  permitting  the  imagination  to 

ioFor  the  Platonic  conception  of  slackness  and  vanity  see  The 
Religion  of  Plato  253.  The  k&hcltos  which  Plotinus  borrows  from 
Heraclitus  corresponds  with  the  pq.6vp.ia  of  Athanasius  and  other 
Christian  theologians;  the  r6\pa  and  the  ^ovXgdijvaL  eavruv  ehai 
with  the  Christian  axovoia. 


PLOTINUS 


203 

transform  these  psychological  facts  into  a  cos¬ 
mic  mythology.  Whether  Plotinus  was  justified 
in  his  peculiar  interpretation  of  the  doctrine  of 
Ideas,  and  how  far  the  mystical  trance,  which  he 
superimposed  upon  Platonism,  can  be  embodied 
in  a  sound  philosophy,  are  questions  of  another 
colour,  to  which  our  answer  may  be  deferred  un¬ 
til  our  estimation  of  the  value  of  the  Plotinian 
system  as  a  whole. 

Our  business  at  this  point  is  with  the  meta¬ 
physical  scheme  in  the  Enneads ,  which  intro¬ 
duces  a  mental  procedure  quite  different  in  kind 
from  what  we  have  been  considering.  Reason 
now,  instead  of  limiting  its  function  to  analysing 
and  clarifying  the  psychological  data  at  its  ser¬ 
vice,  will  undertake  to  build  up  a  theory  of  the 
cause  and  genesis  of  the  total  sum  of  things,  the 
rerum  natura in  harmony  with  its  own  demands 
for  a  logical  absolute;  and  if  the  facts  of  our 
consciousness  prove  rebellious  to  these  demands, 
so  much  the  worse  for  the  facts.  Stoic  and  Epi¬ 
curean  had  done  this  by  means  of  a  monistic 
naturalism,  why  should  not  the  Idealist  do  the 
same  in  his  own  manner  for  his  own  edification? 


Felix  qui  potuit  rerum  cognoscere  causas , 
Atque  metus  omnis  et  inexorabile  fatum 
Subiecit  pedibus  strepitumque  Acherontis  avari. 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


204 

Whether  warranted  or  not,  the  transition 
from  philosophy  to  metaphysics  is  comprehen¬ 
sible  enough.  Reason,  as  Plotinus  says,  is  the 
faculty  that  goes  on  dividing  until  it  reaches  the 
perfectly  simple  which  is  no  longer  susceptible 
of  analysis ;  its  unchecked  course  leads  straight 
on  to  the  dark  and  baffling  abyss  where  all  dis¬ 
tinctions  cease.  Now  just  such  a  resting  place  is 
offered  by  the  presumption  of  mysticism.  The 
ecstatic  trance  will  be  accepted  as  a  positive  ex¬ 
perience,  and  then  will  be  wrenched  from  its 
psychological  setting  and  conceived  as  an  ab¬ 
stract  Unity.  This  Unity  will  be  hypostatized  as 
the  ultimate  reality  and  hence  as  the  cause  of  all 
things,  while  the  multiple  world  of  phenomena 
will  be  conceived  as  an  effect  flowing  out  by  some 
mechanical  process  from  the  universal  source  of 
being. 

To  Plotinus  it  is  evident  that  this  transcen¬ 
dental  monism,  this  metaphysic  of  the  spirit, 
seemed  to  come  straight  out  of  Plato’s  Dia¬ 
logues  ;  and  many,  perhaps  most,  critics  of  the 
present  day  write  as  if  Neoplatonism  were  an 
inevitable  and  proper  development  of  the  Pla¬ 
tonic  philosophy.  That,  emphatically,  is  not  the 
thesis  I  would  maintain.  Neoplatonism,  as  I  see 
it,  derives  its  central  dogma  not  from  Plato  at 


PLOTINUS 


205 

all,  but  from  a  method  of  reasoning  which  was 
introduced  by  Aristotle,  and  which,  combining 
with  certain  Oriental  currents  of  theology  and 
merginginto  Neo-Pythagoreanism,  carried  phi¬ 
losophy  in  a  direction  quite  contrary  to  the  true 
implications  of  Platonism.  The  question,  as  it 
involves  matters  of  the  first  importance,  may 
warrant  a  digression  of  some  length  before  we 
take  up  the  Plotinian  scheme  analytically. 


V 

Plato’s  treatment  of  the  problem  of  creation, 
as  the  reader  of  the  Timaeus  need  scarcely  be 
reminded,  was  not  rationalistic  or  metaphysical, 
but  mythological.  In  the  simplest  terms,  his  the¬ 
ory  means  that  we  are  conscious  of  two  forces 
at  work  in  ourselves  and  in  the  world,  a  divine 
cause  and  a  lower  cause.  The  realm  of  phenom¬ 
ena,  in  which  our  mortal  life  passes,  is  a  com¬ 
posite  of  these  two  forces ;  or,  in  the  language  of 
the  religious  imagination,  God,  with  His  eye  set 
on  the  everlasting  and  immutable  Ideas,  im¬ 
poses  form  and  order  on  an  aboriginal  chaos, 
so  far  as  the  necessity  therein  permits.  Pie  him¬ 
self  creates  the  universe  as  a  whole,  a  living 
creature,  the  god  to  be ;  while  to  the  lesser  gods 


206  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

He  assigns  the  task  of  fashioning  and  govern¬ 
ing  the  individual  creatures  in  the  world  of  gene¬ 
sis,  or  becoming. 

Now  the  relation  of  Plato’s  mythological 
scheme  to  the  Aristotelian  metaphysics  and  to 
the  subsequent  course  of  religious  philosophy 
may  be  seen  by  a  glance  at  the  diagram  on  the 
opposite  page. 

In  the  first  place  it  is  to  be  noted  that  for  the 
dualism  of  Plato,  corresponding  to  our  innate 
and  insurmountable  sense  of  the  divine  and  the 
“necessary”  in  our  realm  of  experience,  Aris¬ 
totle  has  substituted  a  dualism  justified,  if  it  can 
be  justified  at  all,  on  the  demands  of  pure  rea¬ 
son.  Because  no  rational  account  could  be  given, 
as  Plato  himself  admitted,  of  the  relation  between 
Ideas  as  divine  entities  and  the  forms  of  the  phe¬ 
nomenal  world,  Aristotle  denies  the  existence  of 
any  such  Ideas,  and  ascribes  the  final  reality  of 
being  to  the  intimate  and  inseparable  union  of 
form  (or  idea)  and  matter  in  individual  objects. 
To  existence  in  this  sense  God  has  no  relation  as 
cause  or  governor ;  the  world  in  its  substance  is 
eternal  and  totally  independent  of  divine  inter¬ 
ference.  God,  so  far  as  He  is  cause,  is  regarded 
as  the  source  of  motion,  not  of  being,  and  even 
as  such  He  stands  utterly  remote  from  conscious 


PLOTINUS 


207 


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208 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


and  voluntary  contact  with  the  world.  Here  en¬ 
ters  the  wedge  that  was  to  split  the  dualistic 
view  of  the  world  in  such  a  manner  as  to  drive 
thought  finally  into  an  absolute  monism.  The 
process  of  reasoning  by  which  Aristotle  reaches 
this  conception  of  the  first  cause  displays  strik¬ 
ingly  and  once  for  all  the  fallacy  inherent  in  the 
metaphysical  method. 

The  argument11  starts  from  a  supposed  law 
of  mechanics:  every  object  in  motion,  accord¬ 
ing  to  Aristotle,  presupposes  a  motor,  which,  as 
it  is  itself  in  motion,  presupposes  another  motor. 
(That  is  a  theory  which  seems  to  follow  from 
our  daily  observation  of  the  material  world,  and 
which  conforms  to  Newton’s  three  laws  of  mo¬ 
tion  to  this  extent  that  every  change  of  motion 
requires  an  external  motor.)  But,  Aristotle  con¬ 
tinues,  we  must  pause  somewhere ;  reason  can¬ 
not  abide  the  thought  of  a  series  of  mobiles  and 
motors  regressing  to  infinity,  it  must  have  a  be¬ 
ginning.  ( There  is  nothing  in  our  knowledge  of 
physical  facts  to  justify  this  demand  of  reason. 
So  far  as  our  experience  goes,  the  series  is  with¬ 
out  beginning  or  end,  or,  rather,  our  physical 

nThe  following  statement  of  Aristotle’s  metaphysical  argument 
is*  taken  from  Clodius  Piat’s  masterly  exposition  in  his  volume  of 
Les  grands  pliilosophes  p.  110  If.  The  comments  and  criticisms 
are  of  course  my  own. 


PLOTINUS 


209 

experience  has  nothing  to  do  with  beginnings  or 
ends.  Aristotle’s  argument  is  of  a  purely  meta¬ 
physical  character  having  no  connexion  with 
mechanics.)  There  must,  then,  be  a  final  motor, 
which,  as  such,  is  not  moved  by  anything  anter¬ 
ior  to  itself.  It  cannot  be  moved  from  without, 
because  it  is  the  first  motor,  or  from  within,  be¬ 
cause  all  motion  requires  an  external  motor ;  it 
is  essentially  and  absolutely  unmoved,  and  there¬ 
fore  motionless,  being  the  complete  actualiza¬ 
tion  of  all  potential  motion  (whatever  that  may 
mean).  It  is  the  Unmoved  Mover.  How  then 
does  it  move  the  world?  Certainly  not  by  means 
of  a  mechanical  impulse,  for  this,  by  the  law  of 
mechanics,  would  imply  a  movement  in  itself 
by  reaction.  It  will  act  upon  the  world  as  a  final 
cause,  as  the  end  towards  which  all  moving 
things  aspire,  as  they  are  set  in  motion  by  an 
innate  love  of  the  Absolute  which  itself  recipro¬ 
cates  nothing.  And  this  final  cause  of  all  motion, 
itself  unmoved,  is  God. 

Here  several  observations  are  in  order.  In  the 
first  place,  this  consummation  of  Aristotle’s  rea¬ 
soning  offers  no  likeness  to  anything  in  human 
experience,  whether  spiritual  or  natural.  Plato 
had  defined  soul  as  the  self-moved  mover,  and 
so  as  the  cause  of  all  moving,  logically  antece- 


210  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

dent  to  mechanical  motion  which  demands  an  ex¬ 
ternal  motor.  His  language  is  not  precise,  as 
Aristotle  pointed  out,12  since  mechanical  motion 
is  spatial,  whereas  psychic  activity  is  non-spa- 
tial.  His  theory  thus  leaves  unexplained  the  real¬ 
ly  unexplainable  connection,  or  modus  operan- 
di ,  between  mind  and  matter ;  but  it  answers  to 
this  simple  fact  of  our  experience,  that  the  soul, 
as  free  agent,  possesses  a  spontaneous  activity, 
whereas  in  the  mechanical  world,  so  far  as  we 
know  it,  there  is  no  freedom  or  spontaneity,  but 
only  the  action  and  reaction  between  inert  bod¬ 
ies  in  motion.  And  thus  the  definition  of  God  as 
the  original  self -moved  mover,  a  spirit  tran¬ 
scendent  yet  somehow  operating  by  his  divine 
will  within  the  sphere  of  mechanical  forces,  may 
leave  His  nature  a  mystery,  but  a  mystery  akin 
to  the  relation  of  mind  and  body  which  meets  us 
in  every  act  of  our  diurnal  life.  By  going  a  step 
further  and  defining  God  as  the  Unmoved 
Mover,  Aristotle  has  passed  from  philosophy 
to  metaphysics ;  that  is  to  say,  driven  on  by  the 
insatiate  impulse  of  reason  to  express  itself  in 
absolutes,  he  has  defined  the  ultimate  spiritual 
reality  in  terms  which  have  no  relation  to  any¬ 
thing  we  know  from  our  own  spiritual  life,  and, 


1 2De  Anima  i,  3. 


PLOTINUS 


211 


baldly  stated,  have  no  meaning  at  all.  But  at  the 
same  time — and  this  explains  the  pertinacious 
attraction  of  the  error — he  pretends  to  reach  his 
conclusion  by  a  straight  argument  from  the  uni¬ 
versally  acknowledged  facts  of  our  physical  ex¬ 
perience,  not  observing  that  his  conclusion  in  an 
Unmoved  Mover  is  not  a  derivation  from,  but  a 
flat  contradiction  of,  his  premise  that  every  ob¬ 
ject  in  motion  presupposes  a  motor  which  is  it¬ 
self  in  motion.  This  pretension  to  lend  the  au¬ 
thority  of  physical  f  act,  or  scientific  observation, 
to  a  theorem  which  is  essentially  contradictory 
to  all  our  physical  experience  lies  perdu  in  the 
very  method  of  rationalism,  and  indeed  in  all 
so-called  science  which  glides  surreptitiously  in¬ 
to  metaphysical  generalizations.  The  sceptics, 
as  we  shall  see,  laid  hold  of  this  inconsistency 
with  deadly  effect. 

In  a  sense  Aristotle’s  absolute  might  be  de¬ 
scribed  as  a  blending  of  Plato’s  God  with  the 
Idea  of  the  True  and  the  Good,  while  it  heart¬ 
lessly  eliminates  what  is  valuable  in  both.  As  the 
cause  of  all  life  and  motion,  it  is  God,  but  not 
the  Creator,  since  it  has  no  connexion  with  the 
being  of  individual  objects  or  persons;  nor  is  it 
the  author  of  Providence,  since  it  has  no  con¬ 
scious  concern  with  the  unrolling  of  mundane 


212 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


events.  As  the  goal  of  all  thinking,  it  is  the  Idea 

of  the  True:  but  it  is  a  truth  evacuated  of  any 

•/ 

content,  being  the  pure  energy  of  self-contem¬ 
plation,.  without  difference  or  sequence  or  pur¬ 
pose  or  specific  thought.  As  the  end  of  all  desir¬ 
ing,.  it  is  the  Idea  of  the  Good;  but  it  is  a  good 
devoid  of  meaning  or  value,  since  a  gulf  yawns 
between  it  and  the  principle  of  form  and  order 
which  enters  into  the  composition  of  individual 
beings.  Plato  might  seem  to  have  had  Aristotle’s 
absolute  in  mind  when  he  exclaimed:  “In  the 
name  of  God.  what  is  this !  Are  we  going  to  be¬ 
lieve  out  of  hand  that  the  highest  Being  has  in 
fact  no  motion  or  fife  or  soul  or  intelligence, — a 
thing  that  neither  fives  nor  thinks,  but  remains 
forever  fixed  in  solemn,  holy,  miconscious  va¬ 
cuity  ?‘‘13 
•> 

These  may  be  reckoned  harsh  words  to  apply 
to  “the  master  of  them  that  know" ;  and  indeed, 
if  our  design  embraced  a  history  of  Greek  phi¬ 
losophy  in  its  yarious  ramifications,  we  should 
have  a  very  different  account  to  render  of  Aris- 
totle's  scope  and  significance.  But  even  in  the 
secular  branch  of  philosophy,  I  do  not  see  how 
the  conclusion  can  be  avoided  that  his  introduc¬ 
tion  of  metaphysics  has  been  the  source  of  end- 

Sophist  -4S  e. 


PLOTINUS 


213 

less  logomachies  which  bear  no  relation  to  the 
facts  of  human  experience.  Certainly,  in  the  re¬ 
ligious  sphere  which  is  our  special  province,  his 
conception  of  Cod  must  be  rejected  finally  as 
an  unwarranted  assumption  of  the  unchecked 
reason,  logically  self -destructive,  intellectually 
confusing,  ethically  mischievous. 

How  far  the  later  theologians,  pagan  and 
Christian,  were  directly  and  consciously  influ¬ 
enced  by  Aristotle,  is  a  question  not  easy  to  an¬ 
swer.  On  the  one  hand  the  references  to  his  works 
are  surprisingly  rare  throughout  this  whole  per¬ 
iod;  Plotinus,  for  instance,  seldom  alludes  to 
him,  whereas  the  reminiscences  of  Plato  in  the 
Enneads  are  innumerable.  Yet  Neoplatonism  is 
undoubtedly  more  Aristotelian  than  Platonic 
at  the  core,  and  Loofs  can  maintain  that  all  the 
positive  theological  dogmas  of  Dionysius  the 
Areopagite  (whose  mysticism  is  essentially  Neo¬ 
platonic)  go  back  ultimately  to  the  Aristotelian 
conception  of  God.14  Among  the  Christian  wri¬ 
ters  a  distinction  must  be  made.  For  the  ortho¬ 
dox  theologians  of  the  first  centuries  Aristotle 
scarcely  existed ;  and  this  general  neglect  is  ex- 

14 Dogmengeschichte 4  320.  It  is  at  least  questionable,  however, 
whether  Loofs  is  correct  in  saying  that  Aristotle’s  God  is'  the 
erste  Ursache  unci  letztes  Ziel  cities  Seienden.  For  a  different 
view,  which  I  have  adopted  supra ,  see  Boehm,  Die  Gottesidee  bei 
Aristoteles. 


214  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

plained  simply  enough  by  Gregory  Nazianzen’s 
contemptuous  reference  to  his  “petty  view  of 
Providence,  his  technical  method,  and  his  mor¬ 
tal  theories  of  the  soul.”15  On  the  contrary  it  is 
characteristic  of  the  major  heresies  that  they 
all,  openly  or  implicitly,  turned  for  their  philo¬ 
sophical  basis  from  Plato  to  Aristotle,  and  we 
may  surmise  that  the  heretical  treatises,  if  pre¬ 
served,  would  display  abundant  allusions  to  the 
Peripatetic  logic  and  metaphysics.  Though  N eo- 
platonism  had  already  begun  its  work  in  the 
theology  of  St.  Augustine,  the  direct  entrance 
of  Aristotle  into  the  accepted  theology  of  the 
Church  occurred  at  a  definite  moment  after  the 
Council  of  Chalcedon,  at  the  close  of  our  period, 
when  Leontius  of  Byzantium  undertook  to  ex¬ 
plain  and  support  rationalistically  the  bare  dog¬ 
matic  statement  of  the  creed  as  to  the  single  per¬ 
sonality  and  dual  nature  of  Christ.  By  suffer¬ 
ing  itself  to  be  seduced  in  this  direction,  scho¬ 
lasticism  adopted  the  metaphysical  method  of 
the  heretics  as  opposed  to  the  Platonic  method 
of  the  great  orthodox  Grecians,  and  it  is  a  ven¬ 
turesome,  but  warrantable,  thesis  that  the  the¬ 
ology  of  the  Church  Councils,  since  the  year  451, 


15Theol.  Or.  I,  10:  ’  ApiaroriKovs  tt)v  puKpokbyov  irpbvoiav ,  Kal  rb  evrex- 
vov,  Kal  tov s  OvrjTobs  irepl  \p vxvs  Xbyovs,  Kal  rb  avdpwiriKbv  t&v  doypidTior. 


PLOTINUS 


215 

has  been  vitiated  to  a  certain  extent  by  the  un¬ 
orthodox,  and  at  bottom  anti-religious,  logic  of 
Aristotelianism.  If  the  Greek  theology  of  the 
third  and  fourth  centuries  is  orthodox,  then 
heresy  can  be  plucked  with  both  hands  out  of 
Thomas  Aquinas.16 

On  the  whole,  then,  in  the  absence  of  docu¬ 
ments  which  would  enable  us  to  trace  fully  the 
history  of  the  subject,  it  may  be  said  that,  apart 
from  its  double  role  in  Christian  theology,  the 
influence  of  Aristotelian  transcendentalism 
merged  at  an  early  date  with  various  streams  of 
thought,  Neo-Pythagorean,  Oriental,  and  what 
not,  which  however  commonly  regarded  them¬ 
selves  as  Platonic  rather  than  Peripatetic,  and 
which  reached  their  flower  in  the  metaphysical 
system  of  Plotinus.17  Generally  speaking,  the 
effect  of  this  transcendentalism  has  been  two- 

isThis  is  not  the  place  to  enter  into  the  details  of  Christian  the¬ 
ology.  Those  who  are  curious  to  see  the  relations  between  Aris¬ 
totle  and  heresy  may  be  referred  to  Whittaker,  Apollonius  of 
Tyana  71;  Tixeront,  Hist,  des  Dogmes  II,  22,  28,  40,  100;  Robert¬ 
son,  Regnum  Dei  153.  For  Leontius  of  Byzantium  see  H.  M. 
Relton,  A  Study  in  Christology.  An  illustration  of  the  devastat¬ 
ing  effect  of  the  Aristotelian  metaphysic  on  medieval  theology  is 
the  doctrine  of  Transubstantiation. 

i7The  Neoplatonists  and  their  syncretic  predecessors  made  a 
conscious  effort  to  reconcile  Plato  and  Aristotle,  and  to  this  end 
appealed  to  the  supposed  esoteric  doctrine  of  Plato,  hints  of 
which  are  found  in  the  spurious  Epistles.  Numenius,  for  in¬ 
stance,  wrote  a  treatise  on  the  &ypa(pa86‘ypLaTaof  Plato  which  he 
entitled  Heplrdv  Trapa  XYKoltwvl  air  op prjrwp.  On  this1  subject  see  the 
excellent  pages  (82  ff.)  of  Chaignet’s  Platon. 


2l6 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


fold :  in  irreligious  minds  it  has  tended  to  rele¬ 
gate  God  to  a  polite  limbo  of  the  Unknowable, 
resulting  in  agnosticism  or  more  outspoken  ma¬ 
terialism;  with  the  religiously  inclined  it  has 
fostered  a  mysticism  which  holds  itself  from  the 
sheer  abyss  of  inanity  by  creating  a  variety  of 
intermediaries  between  its  remotest  divinity  and 
the  world.  ■*  , 

Aristotle  himself,  sought  to  bridge  over  the 
gap  between  his  Unmoved  Mover  and  the  var¬ 
iously  moving  world  by  the  insertion  of  a  celes¬ 
tial  sphere  forever  revolving  about  itself  in  an 
unvaried  motion.  But  the  tendency  towards  a 
mysticism  mitigated  by  intermediaries  comes 
clearly  to  the  front  in  Philo  the  Jew,  whose 
deity  is  a  strange  mixture — an  unholy  mesal¬ 
liance  I  should  like  to  say — of  the  Hebrew  Je¬ 
hovah  and  the  Aristotelian  Absolute.  Between 
this  God  and  the  world,  from  which  He  is  com¬ 
pletely  severed  by  His  transcendental  nature, 
Philo  then  inserts  the  Logos,  a  compound  of  the 
Platonic  Ideas  and  the  Stoic  logoi ,  conceived  as 
the  animated,  but  not  fully  personified,  mind  of 
deity.  And  all  this  in  Philo’s  eyes  appeared  to 
be  pure  Plato  and  pure  Moses;  Aristotle  he 
scarcely  recognizes. 

More  extraordinary  was  the  course  taken  by 


PLOTINUS 


217 

the  Gnostics.  They  might  differ  in  everything 
else,  but  in  one  thing  they  all  agreed :  in  making 
a  distinction  between  the  true  God,  who  dwells 
aloof  from  any  contact  with  change  and  appear¬ 
ance  and  mortal  life  in  a  dark  abyss  of  silence, 
and  a  lower  deity,  who  is  the  Demiurge,  or  Cre¬ 
ator,  of  the  world  and  the  more  or  less  respon¬ 
sible  author  of  suffering  and  evil. 

In  line  with  the  Gnostics  stands  the  rather 
enigmatical  figure  of  N 11  me ni us  of  Apamea 
(see  the  diagram  on  p.  207),  who  flourished  in 
the  reign  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  and  of  whose 
works  some  fragments  are  preserved.  He  was: 
professedly  an  eclectic,  or  syncretist,  whose  phil¬ 
osophical  brew  should  contain  the  wisdom  of  the 
Brahmins,  Hebrews,  Magi,  and  Egyptians,  dis¬ 
solved  in  a  medium  itself  compounded  of  Pla¬ 
tonism  and  Pythagoreanism.  Out  of  this  con¬ 
coction  certain  images  emerge.  The  divine  cause, 
which  by  Plato  had  been  left  as  Demiurge  and 
Ideas  in  parallel  state,  is  split  up  into  a  trinity 
of  subordinated  causes.  The  first  God,  the  One 
identified  with  Being  and  Nous  and  the  Idea  of 
the  Good,  is  too  remote  to  have  any  contact  with 
the  sphere  of  change  and  appearance.  Below 
him  stands  a  second  God,  who  is  not  Goodness 
but  good,  the  Demiurge  of  Plato’s  Tim aeus}  the 


2l8 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


divine  conceived  as  working  in  the  sphere  of 
genesis.  And  there  is  still  a  third,  who  seems  to 
be  a  misunderstanding  of  the  Timaean  descrip¬ 
tion  of  the  universe  as  a  living  creature,  “the 
god  to  be.”  All  this  to  Numenius  was  pure  Pla-» 
tonism,  or  pure  Mosaism,  as  you  choose;  for 
“what,”  he  says,  thinking  no  doubt  of  Philo’s 
blend,  “is  Plato  but  Moses  in  Attic  speech?” 
As  a  Platonist  he  still  maintains  a  strict  dual¬ 
ism  between  the  divine  cause  and  the  hyle  (mat¬ 
ter)  underlying  the  phenomenal  world,  regards 
evil  as  a  spirit  of  ignorance  and  disorder  in  the 
material  substratum,  and  writes  a  history  of  the 
Academy  to  show  how  the  later  leaders  of  the 
school  betrayed  its  founder. 


VI 

We  can  now  see  where  the  mystical  monism 
which  closed  the  psychological  experience  of 
Plotinus  joined  this  metaphysical  current  from 
Aristotle  to  Numenius.  The  highest  member  of 
the  divine  cause  for  Numenius  was  the  One,  but 
it  could  be  described  also  as  Being  and  Nous, 
and  thus  was  not  utterly  devoid  of  shadowy 
qualities  and  activities.  For  Plotinus  the  One, 
as  the  abyss  into  which  contemplation  plunges 


PLOTINUS 


219 

in  a  kind  of  suicidal  vertigo,  must  be  lifted  into 
the  dark  vacuity  above  both  mind  and  being, 
which  are  relegated  to  a  second  place  in  a  new 
triad.  His  First  Principle  will  be,  in  the  com-  " 
plete  sense  of  the  words,  absolute  and  abstract- 
unqualified,  undefinable,  non-existent  as  super- 
essential.  It  may  possibly  be  called  the  Good; 
but  it  is  not  good  as  Plato  applied  that  term  to 
the  Demiurge,  since  it  has  no  feeling  for  any¬ 
thing  within  itself  or  outside  of  itself,  but  is  the 
unrelated  source  of  all  relations.  It  is  the  spir¬ 
itual  affirmation  of  Socrates  transformed  into  a 
relentless  negation.18  The  dualism  of  Plato, 
which  still  in  Numenius  contrived  to  hold  a  pre¬ 
carious  place,  has  been  eliminated  to  the  utmost. 
There  is  no  longer,  properly  speaking,  a  Crea¬ 
tor  in  the  scheme,  nor  a  distinct  act  of  creation, 
but  the  sphere  of  genesis  overflows  from  the 
lowest  member  of  the  divine  triad  and  expands 
infinitely  into  the  emptiness  of  hyle. 

The  Neoplatonic  problem,  then,  a  very  pretty 
problem,  will  be  to  explain  why  and  how  this 
concrete  world  of  experience  has  been  evolved 
from  a  metaphysical  abstraction.  For  the  why 

isEven  the  One  and  the  Good  are,  so  to  speak,  courtesy  titles  and 
imply  a  positive  addition  to  what  is  purely  negative.  The  name 
“One,”  it  is  said  (V,  v,  6),  perhaps  means  no  more  than  the 
denial  of  multiplicity;  and  (V,  v,  10)  the  “Good”  is  what  the 
Nous  remembers  of  It  after  the  vision  has  passed. 


220 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


Plotinus  is  rather  vague;  as  indeed  the  mere  pos¬ 
sibility  of  such  a  question  implies  a  flaw  in  his 
monism.  Perhaps  the  nearest  approach  to  a  clear 
answer  can  be  found  in  the  principle  of  vision, 
contemplation,  theoria.  In  one  of  the  chapters 
of  his  great  book  On  Nature  and  Contempla¬ 
tion  and  the  One  the  question  is  put  to  N ature 
herself  why  she  brings  forth  works,  and  she  re¬ 
in,  viii,  4  plies :  “It  would  have  been  better  not  to  ask  but 
to  learn  in  silence,  even  as  I  am  silent  and  make 
no  habit  of  speech.  And  learn  what?  That  all 
becoming  is  my  vision,  seen  in  my  silence ;  for  I, 
myself  sprung  from  vision,  am  vision-loving, 
and  by  this  faculty  bring  forth  vision.”  The  visi¬ 
ble  world  is  thus  the  realization  of  a  desire  of 
vision  in  the  heart  of  Nature.  But  this  creative 
longing  to  see  and  behold  does  not  begin,  nor 
does  it  end,  with  the  evocation  of  material  phe¬ 
nomena;  it  extends  up  and  down,  throughout, 
everywhere,  having  no  bound.  All  doing  is  for 
the  sake  of  contemplation,  and  being  itself  is 
merely  a  by-work  of  visioning.  But  in  perfect 
unity  there  can  be  no  vision,  no  place  for  a  see¬ 
ing  and  a  seen;  if  the  One  will  contemplate  it 
must  lose  its  oneness.  Hence,  the  Supreme,  be¬ 
ginning  as  One,  becomes  pregnant  from  the 
love  of  vision;  and  there  is  multiplicity.  Yet  it 


PLOTINUS 


221 


were  well  if  this  had  never  happened,  for  the 
whence  is  better  than  the  whither;  and  if  the 
question  why  is  still  urged,  the  only  response 
will  be  that  command  of  Nature  to  keep  silence, 
or  that  dark  word  Necessity,  Ananke ,  which  for 
Plato  had  signified  the  limiting  obstacle  to  the 
divine  purpose,  and  is  transformed  by  Plotinus 
into  a  kind  of  fatalism  impending  upon  the 
whole  system  of  the  universe,  a  law  of  compul¬ 
sion  within  the  heart  of  the  divine  itself.19 

In  regard  to  the  how  of  this  expansion  Plo¬ 
tinus  is  more  explicit,  and  perhaps  also  more  un¬ 
intelligible,  according  to  the  rule  that  the  more 
explicitly  one  solves  an  insoluble  problem  the 
less  intelligibly.  All  sorts  of  verbal  ambiguities 
are  involved:  the  double  sense  of  hen  as  “one 

i9lt  is  in  his  poet’s  sense  of  vision  that  Plotinus  remains  most 
faithful  to  the  spirit  of  Platonism.  And  it  is  easy  to  see  how 
vision  and  necessity  are  transferred  by  him  to  his  metaphysical 
system.  Thus  (V,  v,  12)  he  says  that  each  thing  is  to  be  grasped 
by  the  organ  suited  to  it,  one  thing  by  the  eyes,  another  by  the 
ears,  while  to  the  Nous  there  is  vision  of  another  kind.  Those 
who  demand  reality  through  the  bodily  senses  alone  have  for¬ 
gotten  that  which  they  have  desired  and  striven  after  from  the 
beginning.  “For  all  things  reach  after  It  and  strive  for  It  by  a 
necessity  of  their  nature  ((pvaecjs  avay nrj),  having  as  it  were  a  pro¬ 
phetic  sense  that  without  the  vision  they  cannot  be.”  Thus,  if  the 
being  of  all  things  depends  upon  the  necessity  of  vision,  and  if  all 
things  are  an  emanation  from  a  First  Principle,  then  the  neces¬ 
sity  of  vision  will  readily  be  made  the  cause  of  emanation.  This 
whole  chapter  (V,  v,  12)  is  a  marvellous,  and  marvellously  im¬ 
possible,  blend  of  the  Platonic  thedria  in  the  Phaedrus  and  Sym¬ 
posium  and  Republic  with  the  Aristotelian  thedria  of  the  Ethics 
and  Metaphysics. 


V,  iv,  1 


V,  v.  4 


222 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


which  is  composed  of  parts”  and  “one  which  is 
v, iv, i  '  without  parts”;  the  double  sense  of  arclie  as 
“what  is  .first”  and  “what  rules,  exercises  pow¬ 
er,”  and  I  know  not  how  many  other  amphibolo¬ 
gies.  In  the  main,  however,  Plotinus  depends  on 
v,  i,  g,  7  the  Aristotelian  distinction  between  power  in  a 
state  of  potentiality  and  power  energizing,  or 
in  a  state  of  actuality.20  The  First  Principle,  he 
says,  is  perfect,  and,  as  the  Sovereign  Power, 
must  surpass  in  efficacy  all  things  that  are. 
Now  we  observe  that  all  creatures,  as  they  at¬ 
tain  perfection,  do  not  rest  sterilely  in  them¬ 
selves,  but  produce ;  even  soulless  things  do  this 
to  the  extent  of  their  ability,  as  lire  produces 
warmth  and  snow  produces  cold.  How,  then, 
shall  the  Sovereign  Good  abide  in  itself  as  if 
held  by  envy  or  impotence?  There  is  a  necessity 
that  something  should  proceed  from  it  by  virtue 
of  its  sovereignty,  and  again  something  from  this 
second,  and  something  from  this,  infinitely,  since 
the  source  is  infinite. 

The  abstraction  of  reason  is  thus  transformed 
into  a  potential  energy.  This  is  entirely  self- 
sufficient,  yet  from  its  very  infinity  there  will  be 
an  overflow,  or  procession,  into  actual  energy. 


soFrom  this  point  through  the  three  succeeding  paragraphs  I 
follow  the  account  of  the  metaphysical  descent  in  Henri  Guyot’s 
L’Infinite  divine ,  where  full  references  are  given. 


PLOTINUS 


223 

The  question  still  confronts  the  monist:  how 
does  an  absolutely  unqualified  One  emit  from 
itself  a  qualified  and  multiform  world  of  being 
without  itself  undergoing  any  change  or  quali¬ 
fication?  Of  course  the  simple  honest  reply  is,  It 
doesn’t, — at  least  so  far  as  we  have  any  experi¬ 
ence  of  physical  or  psychical  events  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  an  effect  or  emanation  which  leaves 
its  cause  or  source  unaffected.  But  it  is  the  func¬ 
tion  of  metaphysics  to  transcend  physical  or 
psychical  experience,  while  pretending  to  argue 
from  such  an  experience,  and  so  we  have  the 
Neoplatonists  offering  a  meaningless  answer  to 
an  impossible  question  raised  by  a  gratuitous 
hypothesis.  There  are,  says  Plotinus,  two  kinds 
of  energy.  One  is  of  the  essence  of  a  thing  and 
is  actually  the  thing  itself ;  the  other  is  from  the 
essence  of  a  thing  and  is  the  cause  of  another 
thing,  which  in  turn  will  possess  its  own  poten¬ 
tiality.  Thus,  in  the  case  of  fire,  we  distinguish 
between  the  heat  which  is  the  fire  itself  and  the 
heat  which  flows  from  the  fire  without  diminish¬ 
ing  the  fire.  (Bad  physics,  for  which  however 
Plotinus  should  not  be  held  responsible.)  And 
so,  in  like  manner,  the  First  Principle  remains 
unaffected,  while  from  the  energy  which  abides 
with  it  as  its  essential  potentiality,  and  is  It, 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


224 

there  flows  an  actualized  energy  which  takes  a 
second  place  as  Being  and  Nous. 

Now  this  Nous,  as  proceeding  immediately 
from  the  One,  is  itself  in  a  fashion  one ;  but,  as 
mind,  it  instinctively  tries  to  comprehend  that 
from  which  it  sprang.  Or,  we  might  say,  in  its 
primitive  state  it  was  not  mind  but  vision  which 
does  not  see ;  and  so,  in  its  striving  to  realize  it¬ 
self  as  vision,  it  becomes  a  seeing  mind,  no  longer 
a  true  One,  but  as  it  were  a  one  divided  into  the 
seer  and  the  seen.  What  it  beholds  in  itself,  or 
tries  to  behold,  is  its  sublime  source,  but  by  its 
inability  to  grasp  absolute  unity  it  breaks  the 
seen  up  into  multiplicity,  and  thereby  as  a  di¬ 
vided  One  becomes  the  One-Many.  It  is  the  Lo¬ 
gos  and  energy  of  the  First  Principle,  a  great 
God,  but  a  second  god,  below  the  highest. 

As  the  energy  of  the  First  Principle,  Nous  is 
a  potentiality  which  cannot  remain  sterile,  but 
in  its  turn,  without  diminishing  itself,  overflows 
to  produce  a  lower  energy,  like  itself  though  still 
further  from  the  primal  One.  This  hypostasis 
of  mind  is  Soul.  And  as  mind  looks  up  to  the 
One  and  becomes  the  One-Many,  so  Sou! looks 
back  to  mind,  and,  being  unable  to  grasp  the 
noetic  Many  in  a  single  comprehensive  view, 
suffers  a  dispersion  of  energy  in  such  manner  as 


PLOTINUS 


225 

to  become  the  One  -  and- the  -  M  any .  It  sees  part 
by  part,  in  succession,  and  thus  becomes  the  ori¬ 
gin  of  time,  in  distinction  from  eternity  which  is 
the  property  of  noetic  vision.  In  its  weakened 
power  also  it  is  unable  to  see  the  Many  within 
itself  as  Nous  had  done,  and  thus  by  going 
out  of  itself  for  its  vision  becomes  the  origin  of 
space.21  And,  further,  whereas  the  First  Princi¬ 
ple  had  produced  mind  and  mind  had  produced 
soul  in  a  state  of  quiescence  and  without  internal 
change,  the  Soul,  no  longer  an  overflowing  po¬ 
tentiality,  can  create  only  by  an  inner  altera¬ 
tion  and  motion,  producing  thus  a  world  of  sense 
as  a  moving  image  of  itself  in  time  and  outside 
of  itself  in  space.  Soul  is  the  third  God,  complet¬ 
ing  the  celestial  trinity ;  divine  itself,  as  the  hy¬ 
postasis  of  Nous,  what  proceeds  from  it  is  no 
longer  divine,  but  the  beginning  of  mortality. 
The  golden  chain  is  snapped,  and  metaphysics 
has  entered  upon  its  agony. 


VII 

Plotinus  is  in  fact  well  aware  of  the  break  in 

2iIngenious  but  futile  reasoning.  Seeing  in  succession  Soul  pro¬ 
duces  time,  and  seeing  outside  of  itself  it  produces  space.  But  to 
say  that  it  sees  in  succession  and  outside  of  itself  is  to  assume 
time  and  space  as  already  existent,  not  to  explain  their  cause. 
The  whole  metaphysical  procedure  in  fact  is  a  senseless  attempt 
to  explain  genetically  what  is  already  present. 


226 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


his  argument.  His  ethical  and  emotional  phi¬ 
losophy  had  started  from  a  strong  sense  of  the 
dualism  of  consciousness,  from  a  clear  percep¬ 
tion  of  two  elements  in  the  soul,  the  divine  and 
the  mortal.  His  metaphysics,  down  to  the  point 
here  reached,  by  confining  attention  to  one  of 
the  two  threads  of  experience,  the  divine,  had 
retained  a  certain  consistency  and  even  a  kind 
of  specious  clarity.  But  now  a  different  sort  of 
problem  lies  before  him:  he  has  reached  again 
the  starting  point  of  dualism,  and  how  shall  he 
maintain  his  deterministic  monism. 

Time,  space,  motion,  and  it  may  be  added 
form,  are  results  of  the  activity  of  Soul,  which 
is  the  third  and  last  member  of  the  divine  triad ; 
they  are,  so  to  speak,  the  psychical  elements  of 
the  phenomenal  world.  By  the  same  necessity  of 
evolution  matter  also  should  be  an  outflow  from 
the  Soul,  or  from  these  psychical  activities ;  and 
this  indeed  is  true  of  matter  regarded  as  an  ob¬ 
ject  of  the  senses,  regarded,  that  is  to  say,  using 
the  Greek  terminology,  as  earth,  air,  fire,  water, 
and  as  the  formed  and  coloured  bodies  ( somata ) 
of  our  handling.  But  behind,  or  beneath,  these 
manifestations  lies  the  obscure  substratum  of 
matter  itself,  the  hyle,  which  eludes  our  senses, 
and  whose  existence,  as  Plato  said,  we  conjee- 


PLOTINUS 


227 

ture  by  “a  certain  sort  of  bastard  reasoning  with¬ 
out  true  perception.”  As  inexplicable,  Plato  in 
the  Timaeus  was  content  to  leave  it  there  unex¬ 
plained,  calling  it  the  “errant  cause,”  “mother 
and  receptacle  of  this  visible  and  otherwise  per¬ 
ceptible  world  of  creation,”  a  “separate  kind, 
invisible  and  formless,  all-receiving,  and  in  some 
most  extraordinary  manner  partaking  of  the 
Ideal  and  intelligible,  itself  utterly  incompre¬ 
hensible.”  Such  is  the  philosophical  humility  and 
privilege  of  one  who  recognizes  the  limitations 
of  reason.  But  an  avowed  rationalist,  like  Plo¬ 
tinus,  has  no  such  ease.  Having  set  out  to  derive 
all  things  from  the  absolute  One  by  an  unbroken 
process  of  emanation,  or  evolution,  he  must  in 
some  way  fit  this  hyle  into  his  chain,  while  at  the 
same  time  he  must  explain  why  the  chain  should 
terminate  at  this  point,  and  how  this  termina¬ 
tion  brings  into  the  open  a  dualism  which,  de¬ 
spite  his  protests,  must  have  been  latent  in  his 
system  from  the  beginning. 

This  feat  of  mental  legerdemain  Plotinus  ac¬ 
complishes  by  his  definition  of  reality.  The  pro¬ 
gress  from  the  First  Principle  is  not  by  addition  Vlt  v,  12 
to  it  from  some  source  of  reality — for  nothing 
can  be  added  to  that  which  is  already  perfect — 
but  from  not-being.  Mind  and  being,  though  an 


228 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


overflow  from  the  First  Principle,  have  in  a  way 
less  of  reality,  or  of  absolute  being,  than  their 
source  which  is  beyond  being;  Soul  has  less  of 
reality  than  mind  and  being;  and  so  the  whole 
process  implies  at  once  a  constant  dispersion  and 
a  gradual  deprivation  ( steresis )  of  reality.  At 
the  last — for  reason  demands  a  last  as  well  as  a 
first — will  come  that  which  has  no  positive  quali¬ 
ties  to  be  dispersed,  from  which  nothing  more 
can  be  subtracted,  which,  in  a  word,  is  there,  but 
is  there  as  not-being,  a  nothingness  which  rises 
like  a  blank  wall  where  reality  ends.  This  is  the 
hyle  of  Neoplatonism.  It  is  not  properly  speak¬ 
ing  a  part  or  product  of  the  universal  evolution, 
but  the  indescribable  principle  of  multiplicity 
and  deprivation  that  lies  below  being  as  the  in¬ 
effable  One  was  above  being.  The  sum  of  actual 
existence  looks  suspiciously  as  if  it  resulted  from, 
the  conjunction  of  a  descending  and  an  ascend-* 
ing  cause,  though  there  has  been  a  desperate 
effort  to  express  the  act  in  terms  of  a  single  di¬ 
rection. 

Plotinus  in  fact  has  exhausted  the  vocabu-. 
lary  of  rhetoric  and  the  devices  of  logic  to  ex¬ 
plain  the  origin  of  the  phenomenal  world  out  of 
the  chaotic  negation  of  the  hyle.  In  general  the 
cause  of  creation  would  appear  to  be  an  instinc- 


PLOTINUS 


229 

tive  repugnance  of  Soul  for  the  indefinite  and  n,  iv,  10 
unreal.  Soul  has  a  dread  of  sinking  down  into 
the  void ;  and  so,  when  in  its  outgoing  activities 
it  strikes  upon  the  dark  uttermost  clouds  of  not- 
being,  it  endeavours  to  impose  on  the  formless 
and  unqualified  those  forms  and  qualities  which 
it  possesses  in  itself  as  an  inheritance  from  Nous. 

Such  is  the  origin  of  the  material  bodies  in  this 
manifold  world  of  genesis.  But,  though  these 
seem  to  be  material,  they  are  not  really  so  in  the 
sense  that  hyle  enters  into  their  composition  as 
an  actual  substance.  For  this  hyle,  as  the  reverse 
of  the  immutable  and  unqualified  One,  is  in¬ 
capable  of  transformation  or  modification;  it 
should,  rather,  be  likened  to  a  smooth,  impene¬ 
trable  surface  which  reflects  the  forms  cast  upon  m,  vi,  10 
it  without  retaining  any  vestige  of  that  which 
comes  and  goes : — 

“Its  every  utterance,  therefore,  is  a  lie ;  it  pre¬ 
tends  to  be  great  and  it  is  little,  to  be  more  and  it 
is  less;  and  the  Existence  with  which  it  masks 
itself  is  no  Existence,  but  a  passing  trick  mak¬ 
ing  trickery  of  all  that  seems  to  be  present  in 
it,  phantasms  within  a  phantasm.  It  is  like  a 
mirror  showing  things  as  in  itself  when  they 
are  really  elsewhere,  filled  in  appearance  but 
actually  empty,  containing  nothing,  pretending 
everything.  Into  it  and  out  of  it  move  mimicries 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


X 

V 


230 

of  the  Authentic  Existents,  images  playing  up¬ 
on  an  image  devoid  of  Form,  visible  against  it 
by  its  very  formlessness.  They  seem  to  modify 
it  but  in  reality  effect  nothing,  for  they  are  ghost¬ 
ly  and  feeble,  have  no  thrust  and  meet  none  in 
Matter  (hyle)  either ;  they  pass  through  it  leav¬ 
ing  no  cleavage,  as  through  water ;  or  they  might 
be  compared  to  shapes  projected  so  as  to  make 
some  appearance  upon  what  we  can  know  only 
as  the  Void.”22 

Viewed  thus  from  its  lower  source  the  phe¬ 
nomenal  world  fades  into  an  insubstantial  pag- 
m.  vi,  0  eant,  an  uneasy  dream  of  the  Soul,  since  all  of 
the  Soul  that  is*  in  body  sleeps ;  yet  in  another 
aspect,  seen  as  an  evocation  of  the  noetic  forms  in 
the  Soul,  though  it  be  but  as  shadows  of  images, 
these  same  phenomena  are  altogether  wonderful 
and  beautiful  and  radiant  with  reflected  light, 
a  glorious  garment  of  the  Deity,  a  field  wherein 
the  Soul  may  exercise  her  loving  care  with  no 
derogation  of  her  pure  majesty. 


VIII 

If  we  find  ourselves  baffled  by  the  ambiguous 
character  of  the  phenomenal  world,  the  difficul¬ 
ties  grow  mountain  high  when  we  undertake  to ' 


221 1 1,  vi,  7,  Mackenna’s  translation. 


PLOTINUS 


231 

grasp  the  Neoplatonic  theory  of  evil.  There  are 
in  fact  two  methods  of  approaching  the  problem 
involved  in  this  theory,  between  which  Plotinus 
wavers  with  no  warning  and  apparently  no  sense 
of  their  disparity.  One  of  these  is  genuinely  psy¬ 
chological,  and,  as  was  set  forth  in  our  discus¬ 
sion  of  the  Plotinian  philosophy,  merely  traces 
the  source  of  evil  to  the  known  principle  of  in¬ 
dolence  and  vanity  in  the  human  heart.  It  were  „ 
well  if  Plotinus  had  been  content  to  pause  here. 

Put  the  question  unde  malum  as  a  thing  in  na¬ 
ture  was  still  urgent  upon  his  reason,  and  so  we 
find  him  entangling  his  psychology  in  metaphys¬ 
ical  conceptions  of  the  ultimate  why  and  how . 
Inevitably  his  arguments  fall  into  devious  and 
dark  ways. 

In  general,  the  great  cause  is  an  affection  of 
unlucky  matter  and  of  that  which  has  been  made 
like  to  matter;  in  that  view  Plotinus  is  pretty 
constant  whenever  he  touches  on  the  subject  of 
evil  as  a  cosmic  fact.  Put  as  he  chances  to  be 
swayed  by  imagination  or  by  reason,  the  calami¬ 
tous  effects  of  matter  are  regarded  differently, 
just  as  matter  itself  was  explained  differently. 

At  one  time  it  is  almost  Plato  speaking.  That, 
he  says,  which  underlies  all  patterns  and  forms  i,  via,  3ff. 
and  measures  and  limits,  and  has  no  trace  of 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


232 

good  by  any  title  of  its  own,  but,  at  best,  takes 
order  and  grace  from  some  principle  outside  of 
itself,  a  mere  image  in  respect  of  things  that  truly 
are , — this  substratum  reason  by  search  discov¬ 
ers  to  be  the  primal  evil,  evil  absolute.  For  mat¬ 
ter  becomes  mistress  of  whatever  is  manifested 
through  it,  corrupting  and  destroying  the  in¬ 
comer,  and  substituting  its  own  opposite  char¬ 
acter  and  kind.  Body  is  evil  so  far  as  it  partakes 
of  this  substratum.  Soul  is  evil  in  so  far  as  it  be¬ 
comes  individual  by  entering  into  body  and  by 
that  act  is  made  subject  to  excess  and  disorder 
and  false  judgments.  And  thus,  as  going  up¬ 
ward  from  virtue  we  come  to  the  Beautiful  and 
the  Good,  so,  by  going  downward  from  vice,  we 
reach  essential  evil.  And  the  individual  soul, 
when  it  abandons  itself  unreservedly  to  the  ex¬ 
treme  of  viciousness,  is  no  longer  a  vicious  soul 
merely — for  mere  vice  is  still  human,  still  car¬ 
ries  some  trace  of  good — but  has  taken  to  itself 
another  nature,  the  Evil,  and  so  far  as  soul  can  be, 
it  is  dead.  And  the  death  of  the  soul  is  twofold: 
while  sunk  in  the  body  to  lie  down  in  matter  and 
drench  itself  therewith ;  and  when  it  has  left  the 
body  to  lie  for  a  season  in  that  nether  world — 
which  is  our  “going  down  to  Blades  and  slum¬ 
bering  there.” 


PLOTINUS 


233 

All  this  is  positive  enough  to  satisfy  the  im¬ 
agination  of  the  most  thoroughgoing  dualist; 
but  then  comes  the  metaphysical  qualm  and  rea¬ 
son  has  her  revanche.  If  all  things  are  evolved 
out  of  the  One- Good,  there  can  be  no  positive 
wrong  in  the  world,  but  only  in  some  unimagin¬ 
able  way  an  illusion  of  wrong.  As  matter  lacks 
every  positive  quality  and  must  be  described  in 
terms  of  pure  negation,  so  the  evil  which  seems 
to  rise  up  from*  this  abyss  of  not-being  is  noth¬ 
ing  real,  but  a  kind  of  not-good  which  becomes 
good  when  viewed  positively,  an  insubstantial 
phantom  that  appears,  and  then  vanishes  away 
at  the  touch  of  reason,  like  a  mist  melting  be¬ 
neath  the  rays  of  the  sun.23 

The  nearest  approach  in  Plotinus  to  a  recon¬ 
ciliation  of  these  positive  and  negative  views, 
his  most  characteristic  attitude,  is  that  which 
explains  evil  as  remoteness  from  the  source  in  a 
scheme  of  infinite  expansion.  Evil  thus  becomes 
a  f  ailure  of  good  owing  to  the  f  act  that  one  thing  m,  a,  5 
will  be  less  good  than  another  in  accordance  with 
their  increasing  distance  from  the  focus  of  be¬ 
ing,  while  their  existence  as  individuals  depends 

23Augustine’s  theory  of  evil  as  not-being,  or  deprivation,  was 
taken  from  Plotinus,  and  from  him  has  become  a  part  of  our  the¬ 
ology.  But  the  Christian  theory  is  modified  by  the  non-Plotinian 
conception  of  free  will,  which  introduces  into  Christianity  a  pro¬ 
found  and  gratuitous  inconsistency. 


234 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


on  this  separation.  And  so,  granted  that  the 

i,  vm,  7  Good  shall  not  be  left  in  sterile  loneliness,  there 

is  a  necessity  in  the  outgoing  from  it,  or  the  con¬ 
tinuous  down-going  or  away-going,  that  there 
should  be  a  Last  beyond  which  nothing  more  can 
be  produced.  This  Last  will  have  no  residue  of 
good  in  it,  will  be  the  necessity  of  evil.  Call  it  the 
final  failure,  or  deprivation;  call  it  the  fallen 

ii,  iii,  it  sediment  of  the  Higher  Order,  bitter  and  ern- 

bittering;  say  that  evils  are  necessary  here  be¬ 
cause  of  the  diminishing  energy  in  expansion, — 
the  metaphysical  sting  is  in  this  recurring  word 
Necessity,  Ananke ,  which  for  Plato  was  the 
characteristic  term  of  dualism,  as  designating 
something  contrary  to  the  Good,  but  by  Plo¬ 
tinus  is  translated  into  a  term  of  monism,  as 
designating  something  inherent  in  the  Good. 
Oh,  it  is  not  the  case  of  Tweedledum  and  Twee- 
dledee — far  from  that.  These  speculative  differ¬ 
ences,  though  they  seem  to  be  spun  out  of  thin 
air,  have  a  way  of  reacting  on  our  attitude  to¬ 
wards  the  very  solid  facts  of  life;  and  so  we  find 
in  Plotinus  a  whole  group  of  theories  of  evil  that 
lie  midway  between  his  metaphysics  and  his  phi¬ 
losophy,  and  are  fraught  with  consequences 
practical  enough. 

One  of  his  courses  leads  him  to  the  ancient 


PLOTINUS 


235 

paradox  of  the  whole  and  the  part,  which  vir¬ 
tually  denies  the  existence  of  any  evil  at  all.  This 
world  of  sense,  he  says,  is  no  longer  a  unity  like 
the  world  of  mind,  hut  a  multiplicity,  the  mem¬ 
bers  of  which  are  moved  by  a  desire  for  unifica¬ 
tion  ;  but  desire  by  its  very  nature  is  opposed  to 
desire,  so  that  life  is  filled  with  contention  and 
contradiction.  Thence  flows  evil,  thence  the  spec¬ 
tacle  of  a  world  abounding  in  wrong.  Neverthe¬ 
less,  it  is  the  function  of  philosophy  to  see  that, 
however  vicious  some  of  the  parts  may  be,  yet 
taken  together  the  evils  nullify  one  another  so 
as  to  combine  into  a  perfect  and  flawless  whole. 
If  evil  is  a  factor  in  the  design,  then  it  is  not  cen¬ 
surable,  not  really  evil.  Or,  life  may  be  likened 
to  a  play,  in  which  the  poet  gives  to  each  actor 
a  part  as  protagonist,  or  second,  or  third.  Vil¬ 
lains  and  virtuous  clash  together  to  make  up  the 
plot;  and  for  every  man  there  is  a  place, — a  place 
that  fits  the  good  man,  a  place  that  fits  the  bad, 
and  each  man  assumes  naturally  and  reasonably 
the  role  for  which  he  is  suited.  The  vicious  role 
is  just  as  necessary  as  the  virtuous  for  the  com¬ 
pletion  of  the  drama.  In  like  manner  we  should 
see  that  the  evil  in  the  single  soul  serves  a  good 
purpose  in  the  universal  system,  and  that  what 
in  the  individual  offends  nature,  profits  nature 


236  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

in  the  total  event.  Even  the  executioner’s  ugly 
office  does  not  mar  the  well-governed  State,  since 
such  an  officer  fills  a  civic  necessity ;  and  the  cor¬ 
responding  moral  type  may  be  equally  service¬ 
able.  As  things  are,  all  is  well. 

That  last  metaphor  ought  to  have  been  a  warn¬ 
ing  to  an  honest  thinker ;  for  it  should  be  clear 
enough  that,  however  necessary  the  executioner 
may  be  for  governing  an  actual  State,  there  is 
something  essentially  wrong  in  a  community 
which  needs  such  an  officer.  Even  Plotinus, 
hardened  optimist  though  he  be  when  he  gets 
the  metaphysical  bit  between  his  teeth,  suffers 
a  qualm  of  conscience,  and  asks  himself  whether 
a  scheme  that  comes  to  such  conclusions  does  not 
exonerate  the  basest  wrong-doers  of  their  guilt, 
iv,  iii,  i6  But  no,  he  replies,  the  injustice  of  man  to  man 
is  an  evil  in  the  doer  for  which  he  will  be  held 
responsible ;  although  in  the  order  of  the  whole 
his  act  is  not  injustice,  since  it  was  necessity,  and 
to  his  victim  it  may  be  a  good. 

With  this  statement  Plotinus  passes  to  an¬ 
other  aspect  of  his  argument,  which  professes 
to  take  the  sting  out  of  evil  by  treating  it  as  the 
m,  n,  5  proper  gymnasium  for  virtue.  Not  only  would 
11,  m,  is  this  All  be  incomplete  without  evil,  but  vice  in 
itself  has  many  useful  sides :  it  brings  about  much 


PLOTINUS  237 

that  is  beautiful,  in  the  artist’s  work  for  exam¬ 
ple,  and  it  stirs  men  to  thoughtful  living  and  to 
the  exercise  of  temperance,  not  allowing  them 
to  drowse  in  security.  In  this  vein,  Plotinus  will 
not  shrink  from  the  harshest  Calvinistic  logic: 
all  things,  he  declares,  are  the  work  of  the  rul¬ 
ing  Logos,  even  so-called  evils. 

Now  I  confess  I  never  meet  with  this  specious 
fallacy,  whether  in  Neoplatonist  or  Stoic  or  in 
the  corrupt  application  of  the  Christian  ad  ma- 
iorem  Dei  gloriam,  without  a  feeling  of  revolt 
and  indignation.  Doubtless  good  may  be  wrung 
from  resistance  to  temptation,  and  purity  in  a 
measure  may  be  wrested  from  contamination, 
but  to  turn  this  fact  into  an  argument  for  the 
necessity  of  temptation  in  the  world  or  into  a 
palliation  of  evil  as  not  in  its  essence  and  conse¬ 
quences  evil,  is  nothing  less  than  the  last  degra¬ 
dation  of  rational  unreason.  Plotinus  also,  it  is 
gratifying  to  know,  felt  something  of  this  in  his 
clearer  moments.  It  is  true,  he  admits  in  a  no¬ 
table  passage,  that  the  courage  of  man  is  de¬ 
pendent  on  the  existence  of  war,  as  all  our  prac¬ 
tical  virtues  are  called  out  by  this  or  that  acci¬ 
dent  of  life ;  but  if  Virtue  herself  had  a  choice  in 
the  matter,  whether  there  should  be  wars  in  or¬ 
der  that  she  might  exercise  courage,  and  injus- 


III,  ii,  11 


VI,  iii,  5 


238  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

tice  in  order  that  she  might  restore  the  right,  and 
poverty  as  a  call  to  generosity,  or  whether  the 
earth  should  have  peace  from  all  these  things, 
certainly,  if  the  choice  were  hers,  she  would  pre¬ 
fer  that  all  things  should  go  well,  though  it  left 
her  with  nothing  more  to  do.  Would  not  a  true 
physician,  like  Hippocrates,  desire  that  no  one 
should  have  need  of  his  art? 


IX 

I  have  dwelt  at  what  may  seem  disproportion¬ 
ate  length  on  the  problem  of  evil,  because  it  is 
really  the  point  from  which  Plotinus  takes  his 
start  and  that  to  which  he  comes  back  at  the  last. 
The  curious  fact  is  that  in  the  course  of  this  cir¬ 
cular  process  the  very  solid  reality  from  which 
his  philosophy  sought  a  way  of  escape,  at  the 
touch  of  rationalism  melts  into  an  aerial  noth¬ 
ing.  His  metaphysics  makes  a  jest  of  his  phi¬ 
losophy,  or  his  philosophy  makes  nonsense  of 
his  metaphysics — as  you  choose.  And  it  is  be¬ 
cause  of  the  union  of  these  two  disparate  and 
finally  irreconcilable  elements  in  Neoplatonism 
that  any  just  summing  up  of  its  value  is  so  diffi¬ 
cult. 

Undoubtedly  the  Enneads  contain  the  record 
of  genuine  and  profound  experience  which  has 


PLOTINUS 


239 

entered  into  the  religious  inheritance  of  the  race. 
Now  religion  of  a  vital  sort  is  not  a  common  pos¬ 
session  ;  it  is  a  flower  whose  root  is  always  alive 
in  our  barren  human  nature,  but  which  blossoms 
only  here  and  there ;  it  should  be  regarded,  I  some¬ 
times  think,  as  the  last  fine  luxury  of  the  soul, 
so  costly  that,  if  it  were  got  only  by  buying,  few 
would  pay  the  price.  What  little  grace  of  faith 
we  enjoy  comes  to  most  of  us,  when  it  comes,  by 
the  gift  of  those  pure  minds  endowed  with  spir¬ 
itual  genius,  as  our  poetical  sense  is  fed  by  the 
genius  of  the  great  poets ;  and  the  religious  im¬ 
agination  is  the  supreme  faculty,  rarer  far  among 
men  than  the  poetical  imagination.24  Multitudes 

24Religious  imagination  I  call  this  faculty  of  spiritual  genius, 
and  the  phrase  is  correct,  for  it  is  the  power  of  vizualizing  what 
in  its  nature  is  incorporeal  and  invisible.  St.  Paul  meant  this 
when  he  spoke  (II  Cor.  iv,  18)  of  “the  things  which  are  not  seen.” 
But  Plato,  of  course,  was  the  first  and  not  the  least  great  of 
those  who  possessed  the  gift.  It  was  he  who  made  current  the  no¬ 
tion  of  the  inner  eye  of  the  soul,  and  his  allegories  in  the  Phae- 
drus  and  Symposium  are  the  finest  examples  in  literature  of  the 
spiritual  imagination.  But  we  must  not  disguise  from  ourselves 
the  fact  that  there  is  a  certain  danger  in  the  use  of  this  gift.  For 
after  all  we  do  not  really  see  the  unbodied  world,  and  sometimes, 
when  the  poetic  fervour  has  cooled,  the  reaction  leads  us  to  ques¬ 
tion  the  very  existence  of  a  world  whose  reality  seems  to  depend 
on  an  imaginative  illusion.  The  danger  becomes  acute  in  the 
Neoplatonic  exaggeration  of  the  function  of  vision.  Heinemann 
well  says  ( Plotin  210) :  “In  der  Zusammenhang  der  Grundbe- 
griffe  im  Begriff  der  Schau,  die  auch  als  yz'cDcris  bezeichnet  wird, 
kann  man  eine  Nachwirkung  der  Auseinandersetzung  mit  den 
Gnostikern  erkennen.  Dennoch  bleibt  die  Erhebung  der  Schau 
zum  Wesen  aller  Dinge  die  originelle  These  Plotins;  andere  sagen: 
das  Wesen  der  Welt  ist  Wille,  andere:  Unbewusstes,  andere: 
Willen  zur  Macht,  andere:  Wasser,  andere:  Luft,  Plotin  aber: 
Schau.”  To  make  knowledge  identical  with  the  imaginative  fac¬ 
ulty  of  vision  is  to  bring  religion  perilously  close  to  poetry. 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


240 

can  speak  glibly  of  that  other  world  hidden  be¬ 
hind  the  veil  of  sensuous  phenomena,  but  to  how 
small  a  number  does  it  seem  to  be  a  vivid  reality. 
As  it  was  said  in  the  ancient  mysteries :  many 
carry  the  wand,  the  visionaries  are  few.  And  cer¬ 
tainly  Plotinus  had  that  realization  of  things 
spiritual  which  we  call  seeing.  There  are  pas¬ 
sages  scattered  through  his  work,  in  the  fifth 
Ennead  particularly,  that  leave  no  doubt  of  the 
fact, — passages  which  evoke  the  splendour  of 
this  visible  world  with  its  variegated  charm,  and 
then  suffer  it  to  fade  away  (as  one  picture  of  a 
magic  lantern  is  dimmed  and  overlaid  and  with¬ 
drawn  by  the  imposition  of  another  picture  up¬ 
on  the  screen) ,  while  in  its  place  rises  the  glory 
of  the  archetypal  world,  where  we  contemplate 
things  eternal  in  the  kingdom  of  the  god  Kro- 
nos,  whose  name  is  compounded  of  koros  (full¬ 
ness)  and  nous  (everlasting  mind) .  No  writing 
about  these  passages  or  scanty  quotation  can 
convey  their  force ;  to  be  felt  they  must  be  read 
in  their  completeness  and  by  one  capable  of 
sympathy.  Such  a  reader  will  know  that  the  in¬ 
spiration  of  Plato  was  not  lost,  but  passed  from 
generation  to  generation,  as  the  lighted  torch 
was  handed  from  rider  to  rider  in  the  myster¬ 
ious  night  race  described  in  The  Republic.  If 


PLOTINUS 


241 

Plotinus  has  not  the  perfect  art  of  words  and 
the  creative  genius  of  the  author  of  the  Phae- 
drus  and  the  Symposium ,  the  substance  of  the 
allegory  is  nevertheless  there,  and  at  times  a  pre¬ 
cision  and  directness  of  expression  which  prove 
that  he  was  no  bare  copyist  but  a  master  of  things 
spiritual  inhis  own  right.  So  much  must  be  grant¬ 
ed — and  it  is  very  much — to  the  teacher  of  Neo¬ 
platonism,  and  so  far  his  philosophy  is  genuinely 
Platonic.  Had  he  only  stopped  here,  or  been  con¬ 
tent  in  his  voyage  over  the  wide  seas  of  the  spirit 
to  enrich  the  contents  of  Platonism  with  the 
spoils  of  true  discovery,  instead  of  succumbing 
to  the  Siren  voice  of  the  metaphysical  reason 
and  its  promise  of  the  “ampler  mind” ! 


“For  the  shrill  Sirens,  couched  among  the  flowers, 

Sing  melodies  that  lure  from  the  great  deep 
The  heedless  mariner  to  their  fatal  bowers, 

Where  round  about  them,  piled  in  many  a  heap, 

Lie  the  bleached  bones  of  mouldering  men  that  sleep 
For  ever,  and  the  dead  skins  waste  away. 

Thou  through  the  waves  thy  course  right  onward 
keep. 

And  stop  with  wax  thy  comrades’  ears,  that  thejr 
Hear  not  the  sweet  death-songs  which  through  the  wide 
air  stray.”25 

2 ^Odyssey  xii,  39  ff.,  Worseley’s  translation. — Cicero  (De  Fin.  v, 
18)  read  in  the  verses  the  same  allegory  of  the  lust  of  knowledge. 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


242 

What  harm,  it  will  be  asked,  can  come  from 
dallying  with  the  enchantress  ?  Granted,  as  one 
grants  of  Plotinus,  that  the  genuine  spiritual 
experience  is  there,  why  should  reason  be  checked 
in  the  full  expansion  of  its  powers,  and  prevent¬ 
ed  from  erecting  its  hypothetical  scheme  of  the 
sum  of  things  ?  Why  not  accept  metaphysics  as 
a  good  gymnasium  for  the  brain,  if  nothing 
more?  What  harm?  Well,  to  begin  with,  I  think 
that  the  faculty  of  reason  itself  suffers  from  this 
licence.  Our  main  reliance  in  the  decisions  of  life 
must  always  be  on  the  distinctions  and  assimi¬ 
lations  of  reason,  nor  should  it  be  supposed  for  a 
moment  that  the  dualist  who  re  j  ects  a  metaphys¬ 
ical  rationalism  is  therefore  blind  to  the  super¬ 
lative  need  of  reasonableness.  But  in  order  to 
keep  our  guide  in  the  jungle  of  appearances 
trustworthy,  it  is  of  prime  importance  that  we 
should  retain  our  sensitiveness  to  the  difference 
between  the  act  of  reason  dealing  with  the  data 
presented  to  it  whether  in  the  sphere  of  the 
senses  or  the  spirit,  and  the  act  of  reason  usurp¬ 
ing  the  right  to  subvert  the  truths  of  experience 
to  its  own  insatiable  craving  for  finalities.  And 
just  this  sensitiveness  to  truth  is  imperiled  by 
the  Neoplatonic  rationalism.  I  think  there  is  a 
real  danger  in  reading  incautiously  the  eighth 


PLOTINUS  243 

book  of  the  sixth  Ennead ,  in  which  Plotinus  ar¬ 
gues  back  and  forth  the  question  of  free  will  and 
determinism  in  the  Absolute  One.  He  who  is  car¬ 
ried  away  by  this  sort  of  logic,  and  allows  him¬ 
self  to  forget  that  the  whole  thing  is  a  huge 
logomachy  corresponding  to  nothing  in  the  heav¬ 
ens  or  under  the  heavens  or  in  the  heart  of  man, 
is  likely  to  suffer  a  deep  vitiation  of  the  mind,  or, 
awaking  from  his  illusion,  may  be  converted,  as 
Plato  says,  into  a  misologue,  a  hater  of  reason 
altogether.20  For  Socrates  the  beginning  of  phi¬ 
losophy  as  the  wisdom  of  life  was  to  know  what 
we  know  and  what  we  do  not  know,  and  just  this 
distinction  is  lost  by  the  metaphysician  who  deals 
with  words  and  logical  formulae  which  have  no 
positive  content. 

But  beyond  this  corruption  of  the  reasoning 
faculty  itself — corruptio  optimi  pessima — the 
indulgence  in  metaphysics  may  have  a  retro¬ 
active  effect  on  the  philosophy  of  which  it  is  sup¬ 
posed  to  be  a  legitimate  outgrowth.  This  result 
can  be  seen  clearly  enough  in  the  two  great  de¬ 
partures  of  the  Plotinian  philosophy  from  the 
Platonic — the  new  conception  of  Ideas  and  the 
mysticism,  which  are  so  closely  connected  that 
it  is  difficult  to  say  which  of  the  two,  if  either,  is 
cause  and  which  effect. 


2GPhaedo  89  d. 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


244 

When  Porphyry  joined  the  school  of  Plotinus 
at  Rome,  he  brought  with  him  from  Athens  the 
Longinian  doctrine  that  Ideas  exist  outside  of 
mind  as  separate  entities  of  some  sort,  and  that 
our  knowledge  of  them  is  by  a  process  of  mental 
intuition  corresponding  to  the  physical  percep¬ 
tion  of  material  phenomena.  And  this,  with  the 
kindred  theory  that  the  Ideas  on  which  the  De¬ 
miurge  patterned  the  world  have  an  objective 
and  eternal  reality,  is  certainly,  in  my  opinion, 
the  genuine  Platonic  tradition.  One  of  the  early 
acts  of  Porphyry  in  Rome  was  to  read  a  paper 
supporting  the  Longinian  view ;  but  he  was  ar¬ 
gued  down  by  a  fellow  student,  and  at  last  re¬ 
canted  in  favour  of  the  contrary  view  inculcated 
by  Plotinus. 

Now  for  his  theory  that  Ideas  are  in  the  mind, 
and  only  there,  being  no  more  than  the  noetic 
activity  of  the  soul  itself,  Plotinus  had  abun¬ 
dant  authority.  In  the  first  place  he  could  go 
back  to  the  pre-Socratic  philosophy  and  quote 
the  sajdng  of  Parmenides  that  “thinking  and 
being  are  one  and  the  same,”  and  “  ‘I  sought  out 
myself’  as  one  of  the  things  that  are.”27  For  Pla¬ 
to  himself  he  could  refer  to  Aristotle’s  statement 
(certainly  misleading  if  taken  alone)  that  the 

27See  V,  iv,  5,  and  compare  Plato’s  rejection  of  the  Parmenidean 
sentence  in  the  Sophist. 


PLOTINUS 


245 

place  of  Ideas  according  to  the  Platonic  psy¬ 
chology  was  in  the  soul;28  and  Aristotle’s  doc¬ 
trine  of  contemplation  would  support  the  same 
view.  The  logoi  spermatikoi  of  the  Stoics  were 
essentially  the  Ideas  of  Plato  reduced  by  the 
compulsion  of  monism  to  the  forces  of  genera¬ 
tive  reason  acting  within  the  material  world  of 
phenomena.  For  a  later  age  Plotinus  had  the 
name  of  Philo,  who  taught  explicitly  that  the 
Platonic  Ideas  on  which  the  Creator  modelled 
the  world  were  simply  the  design  in  His  own 
mind,  like  the  plan  in  an  architect’s  brain  when 
he  starts  to  erect  a  building. 

But  what  chiefly  led  Plotinus  to  adopt  this 
theory  of  Ideas  was,  I  think,  a  desire  to  escape 
the  arguments  of  the  agnostic,  with  their  ten¬ 
dency  to  materialism  and  moral  indifference. 
Sextus  Empiricus,  the  historian  of  scepticism, 
had  insisted  on  the  fact  that  our  only  knowledge 
is  of  our  immediate  affections,  while  of  the  ac¬ 
tual  objective  world  behind  our  sensations  we 
can  know  nothing.  Plotinus  sees  that  the  same 
argument  is  valid  for  Ideas,  and  that  here  too, 
so  long  as  a  distinction  is  maintained  between 
the  soul  and  what  affects  it,  there  can  be  no  ab¬ 
solute  knowledge ;  we  may  know  how  we  are  af- 


28 De  An.  Ill,  iv,  5. 


246  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

fected,  but  there  we  stop.  Reason  is  balked  in  its 
desire  to  define  those  spiritual  forces  which  oper¬ 
ate  upon  us  out  of  the  Ideal  world  and  impose 
upon  us  the  law  of  our  moral  being.  This  bar¬ 
rier  of  ignorance  Plotinus  would  overleap  by  sim- 
V,  iii,  5,  6  ply  breaking  down  the  distinction,  and  identify- 
v,  v,  1, 2  ing  the  mind  with  Ideas.  And  at  the  same  time 
he  hoped  to  give  a  new  and  more  precise  mean¬ 
ing  to  the  Delphic  command  of  which  Socrates 
and  Plato  had  made  so  much:  Know  thyself, 
v,  viii,  11  For,  he  says,  if  Ideas  are  not  outside  of  the  mind 
but  in  the  mind,  are  in  sooth  nothing  but  mind 
in  the  act  of  reflecting  upon  itself,  then  to  know 
one’s  self  is  to  know  Ideas  and  to  know  Ideas  is 
to  know  one’s  self. 

All  this  is  highly  ingenious,  and  to  many  will 
appear  a  legitimate  interpretation,  or  it  may  be 
development,  of  Platonism,  as  the  only  method 
by  which  the  doctrine  of  Ideas  can  maintain  it¬ 
self  against  a  critical  analysis.  But  is  it?  On  the 
contrary  is  it  not  the  sort  of  subtle  perversion 
that  undermines  while  it  professes  to  confirm? 
In  the  first  place  the  defence  is  not  necessary. 
It  does  not  follow  that  Ideas  must  become  non¬ 
existent  for  us  if  we  leave  them  as  objects  which 
in  their  inmost  being  we  can  never,  as  our  fac¬ 
ulties  are  now  constituted,  know.  It  does  not 


PLOTINUS 


247 

follow  any  more  than  that  the  material  world 
ceases  to  exist  in  itself  if  our  knowledge  of  it  is 
confined  to  our  sensations.  Our  immediate  af¬ 
fections  in  the  spiritual  order  may  give  us  just 
as  positive  a  conviction  that  we  are  in  contact 
with  an  Ideal  world  as  is  our  conviction  of  the 
material  world ;  it  may  be  even  far  more  real,  as 
touching  the  deeper  strata  of  our  being  and  as 
governing  our  psychical  life. 

And,  pragmatically,  the  change  from  the  Pla¬ 
tonic  to  the  Neoplatonic  conception  of  Ideas 
points  straight  to  that  perversion  of  Ideas  into 
ideals  which  is  the  note  everywhere  of  a  pseudo- 
Platonism.  Now  this  distinction  between  Ideas 
and  ideals,  though  often  ignored  (partly  per¬ 
haps  because  we  have  only  one  abstract  deriva¬ 
tive,  “idealism,”  for  both  of  them ) ,  has  far-reach¬ 
ing  consequences.  The  sham  Platonism  amounts 
simply  to  this,  that  there  is  no  difference  be¬ 
tween  truth  and  falsehood  determined  by  the 
correspondence  of  our  ideals  with  immutable 
spiritual  facts.  Genuine  Platonism  holds,  on  the 
contrary,  that  there  is  a  truth  dependent  on  our 
right  apprehension  of  the  power  and  operation 
of  the  eternal  and  impersonal  Ideas;  it  holds 
that  our  happiness  depends  on  the  discovery  of, 
and  obedience  to,  such  truth.  One  must  add,  in 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


248 

fairness,  that  the  change  from  the  idealism  of 

Ideas  to  that  of  ideals  is  softened  in  Plotinus  by 
his  strong  persuasion  of  a  moral  law  pervading 

all  stages  of  evolution,  and  by  his  rather  illog¬ 
ical  tenet  that  in  the  order  of  evolution  th enoeta, 
as  the  thoughts  of  Nous,  precede  noesis ,  as  the 
thinking  activity  of  Nous.  But  then,  theoretic¬ 
ally,  the  dominion  of  law  can  be  maintained  in 
the  monistic  scheme  of  a  Plotinus  only  by  ex¬ 
tending  the  sway  of  necessity  to  the  deadly  tyr¬ 
anny  of  a  spiritual  determinism.  And,  practical¬ 
ly,  a  sham  Platonism  runs  with  headlong  speed 
into  a  kind  of  spiritual  licence  which  teaches 
that,  if  ideals  are  a  part  of  the  mind,  then  they 
are  ours ;  if  we  create  them  by  our  own  good  will 
and  pleasure,  and  are  answerable  to  no  person 
or  law  for  their  objective  truth,  then  in  a  word 
we  are  free  to  believe  and  desire  and  hope  as  we 
please.  Man  becomes  the  measure  in  the  full 
Protagorean  sense  of  the  phrase. 

Mysticism  is  a  word  of  various  import,  and 
should  not  be  allowed  to  pass  unchallenged.  It 
may  be  used  to  signify  any  form  of  the  super¬ 
natural,  including  a  genuine  Platonic  Idealism ; 
it  may  denote  an  emotional  pantheism  such  as 
Wordsworth  expresses  in  his  Tintern  Abbey , 
or  any  vague  anti-rationalism.  But,  more  strict- 


PLOTINUS 


249 

ly,  it  is  a  metaphysical  and  religious  system  cen¬ 
tring  upon  that  ecstatic  union,  that  absorption 
in  God  or  the  Absolute,  in  which  all  sense  of 
distinctions,  all  positive  sensation  or  thought 
or  emotion  of  any  kind,  even  consciousness,  is 
swallowed  up  in  a  vast  nothingness.  It  is,  to 
borrow  the  rolling  language  of  Sir  Thomas 
Browne,  “Christian  annihilation,  extasis,  exolu- 
tion,  liquefaction,  transformation,  the  kisse  of 
the  Spouse,  gustation  of  God,  and  ingression 
into  the  divine  shadow.”29  The  pseudo-Diony¬ 
sius,  who  introduced  the  ecstatic  philosophy  of 
Plotinus  into  Christianity  and  was  thus  the  be¬ 
getter  of  a  long  line  of  mystics  through  the  Mid¬ 
dle  Ages  and  down  to  the  present  day,  was  as 
precise  in  his  description  as  words  can  be : 

“Unto  this  Darkness  which  is  beyond  Light 
we  pray  that  we  may  come,  and  may  attain  unto 
vision  through  the  loss  of  sight  and  knowledge, 
and  that  in  ceasing  thus  to  see  or  to  know  we 
may  learn  to  know  that  which  is  beyond  all  per¬ 
ception  and  understanding  (for  this  emptying 
of  our  faculties  is  true  sight  and  knowledge), 
and  that  we  may  offer  Him  that  transcends  all 
things  the  praises  of  a  transcendent  hymnody, 
which  we  shall  do  by  denying  or  removing  all 
things  that  are.  .  .  . 

29 H y dr ot aphid,  conclusion. 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


250 

“It  is  not  soul,  or  mind,  or  endowed  with  the 
faculty  of  imagination,  conjecture,  reason,  or 
understanding;  ...  It  is  not  number,  or  or¬ 
der,  or  greatness,  or  littleness,  or  equality,  or 
inequality;  .  .  .  It  is  not  immovable  nor  in  mo¬ 
tion,  or  at  rest,  and  has  no  power,  and  is  not 
power  or  light,  and  does  not  live,  and  is  not  life ; 
nor  is  It  personal  essence,  or  eternity,  or  time ; 
.  .  .  nor  is  It  one,  nor  is  It  unity,  nor  is  It  God¬ 
head  or  Goodness ;  nor  is  It  a  Spirit,  as  we  un¬ 
derstand  the  term,  since  It  is  not  Sonship  or 
Fatherhood;  nor  is  It  any  other  thing  such  as 
we  or  any  other  being  can  have  knowledge  of ; 
nor  does  It  belong  to  the  category  of  non-exist¬ 
ence  or  to  that  of  existence ;  ...  It  transcends 
all  affirmation  by  being  the  perfect  and  unique 
Cause  of  all  things,  and  transcends  all  negation 
by  the  pre-eminence  of  Its  simple  and  absolute 
nature — free  from  every  limitation  and  beyond 
them  all.”30 

This,  with  the  exception  of  a  Christian  term 
or  two  which  are  inessential,  is  a  fair  statement 
of  the  Plotinian  mysticism  carried  to  its  ulti¬ 
mate  expression.  Evidently  we  have  here  a  pro¬ 
duct  of  the  same  spirit  of  introversion  and  unifi¬ 
cation  as  that  which  deprived  the  Platonic  Ideas 
of  their  substantive  reality  and  merged  them 
with  the  Nous.  And  just  as  evidently  it  bears  the 
marks  of  the  Aristotelian  Absolute,  grafted  on 

30 The  Mystical  Theology  ii  and  iv,  translated  by  C.  E.  Rolt. 


PLOTINUS 


251 

the  religious  sentiment  of  the  age  and  trans¬ 
formed  into  a  complete  cause  of  being  as  well  as 
of  motion.  It  immediately  raises  three  questions : 
(1)  the  fact  of  the  experience,  (2)  the  interpre¬ 
tation  of  the  fact,  and  (3)  the  consequences  of 
the  interpretation. 

As  for  the  fact,  I  do  not  see  how  it  can  be  de¬ 
nied.  The  literature  of  the  world,  Oriental  and 
Occidental,  is  too  replete  with  accounts  of  the 
mystical  experience  to  leave  any  room  for  intel¬ 
ligent  doubt.  And  these  accounts  are  singularly 
uniform  in  their  method  of  describing  a  state 
which  they  all  declare  to  be,  positively  speaking, 
indescribable,  unrecordable,  unrememberable. 
Something  has  happened  to  these  mystics,  some¬ 
thing  which  is  unfelt,  or  dimly  felt,  by  the  nor¬ 
mal  man,  hut  which  cannot  for  that  be  laughed 
or  argued  away.  There  is  a  real  experience  here 
to  be  explained. 

Doubt,  or  difference  of  opinion,  becomes  legi¬ 
timate,  however,  when  we  listen  to  the  interpre¬ 
tations  given  by  those  who  have  had  the  experi¬ 
ence.  It  is  true  that  by  turning  inwards  the  mind 
can  brood  upon  physical  sensations  in  such  a 
way  as  to  forget  the  body  and  the  world  of  ma¬ 
terial  forces;  hut  it  does  not  follow  hence  that 
the  body  and  the  material  world  are  really  elim- 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


252 

inated  as  causes  contributing  to  our  physical 
sensations.  It  is  true  that  by  the  same  brooding 
introspection  the  mind  can  think  of  itself  as  the 
source  and  only  place  of  the  world  of  Ideas ;  but 
it  does  not  follow  that  Ideas  have  really  lost 
their  independent  existence  as  powers  which  af¬ 
fect  our  inner  life.  And  so  also  it  is  true  that  by 

%/ 

a  kind  of  self-hypnotization  the  soul  can  with¬ 
draw  itself  from  all  distinctions  of  thinker  and 
thought,  engulfing  itself  in  the  vacuity  of  utter 
abdication ;  but  again  it  does  not  follow  that  our 
words  have  any  authority  when  we  interpret  this 
spiritual  catalepsy  as  evidence  of  a  final  and  ab¬ 
solute  Unity  at  the  heart  of  the  world.  One  may 
suspect  that  a  terrible  confusion  of  emotional 
values  has  played  into  a  like  intellectual  con¬ 
fusion  to  create  a  strange  and  fascinating  phi¬ 
losophy. 

As  for  the  emotional  values,  one  cannot  read 
the  lives  of  the  great  and  the  little  mystics  with¬ 
out  being  impressed  by  the  constantly  recurring 
association  of  the  ecstatic  experience  with  ill 
health,  mental  derangement,  sodden  stupidity, 
morbid  excitability,  moral  degeneracy,  down¬ 
right  criminality,  erotic  mania.  “The  one  thing 
known  about  the  religious  mystical]  exper¬ 
ience  is  that  its  occurrence  is  invariably  due  to  a 


PLOTINUS 


253 


combination  of  lowered  vitality  plus  emotional 
excitement.”  Too  often  the  results  point  to  a 
“dissociation  of  ethical  standards  from  religious 
standards”  as  the  “fundamental  characteristic 
of  mysticism.”  I  quote  these  words,  with  some 
hesitation,  from  a  writer  who,  in  her  fanatical 
hatred  of  everything  approaching  the  superna¬ 
tural  and  in  her  no  less  fanatical  devotion  to 
what  she  calls  science,  would  throw  overboard 
much  that  in  my  judgment  characterizes  the 
higher  reach  of  true  religion.31 1  know  the  power 
and  moral  stimulation  that  have  gone  out  to 
mankind  from  the  lives  of  some  of  the  greater 
mystics ;  and,  indeed,  my  distrust  of  this  whole 
side  of  religion  has  come  to  me  only  after  long 
and  intimate  intercourse  with  mystical  litera¬ 
ture  and  somewhat  against  my  instinctive  sym¬ 
pathies.  But  the  record  is  too  clear  and  too  dis¬ 
astrous;  mysticism  of  the  Plotinian  type  is  al¬ 
most  certain  evidence  of  a  physical  or  mental  or 
moral  taint  somewhere  in  the  devotee.  No  doubt 
the  psychology  is  complicated ;  the  phenomenon 
may  go  with  magnificent  powers,  with  refined 


3iAnna  Robeson  Burr,  Religious  Confessions  and  Confessants. 
Miss  Burr  takes  for  the  motto  of  her  book  these  lines  from  The 
Duchess  of  Malfi,  which  her  record  justifies  only  too  well: 

“O  this  gloomy  world  ! 

In  what  a  shadow  or  deep  pit  of  darkness 
Doth  womanish  and  fearful  mankind  live !” 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


254 

devotion,  and  the  noblest  traits  of  character; 
but  in  itself  it  is  from  the  weakness,  not  the 
strength,  of  religious  experience.  To  regard  the 
momentary  coma  of  the  intellect  as  the  crown¬ 
ing  act  of  submission  to  the  will  of  God  and  as 
the  consummation  of  faith  is  a  radical,  often  a 
dangerous,  confusion  of  emotional  values.  One 
can  see  how,  in  the  finer  souls,  the  error  takes 
place.  The  ecstatic  absorption,  so  called,  may  he 
a  blank,  without  meaning  or  content,  induced 
by  physical  causes  of  a  doubtful  character;  but 
afterwards,  when  the  mind  has  awakened  to  the 
distractions  and  dismay  of  actual  life,  that  mo¬ 
ment  of  quiescence  will  be  glorified  by  the  magic 
of  memory  into  a  realization  of  the  perfect  peace 
of  God  which  the  pious  soul  always  craves  and 
never  consciously  knows.  So  much  we  can  un¬ 
derstand;  but  we  need  not  suffer  our  judgment 
to  be  warped  by  such  an  illusion,  or  forget  the 
dangers  that  beset  it.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the 
Christian  Church  has  shown  a  wholesome  reluc¬ 
tance  to  sanction  extravagances  that,  in  weaker 
men,  too  easily  run  into  spiritual  debauchery; 
“for  every  mystic  she  has  canonized,  she  has 
silenced  ten.” 

The  emotional  claims  of  mysticism,  I  suspect, 
would  be  less  tolerated,  were  they  not  doubled 


PLOTINUS 


255 

by  an  intellectual  confusion  which,  in  the  dark¬ 
ness  of  extinguished  consciousness,  one  might 
say,  suddenly  juggles  our  supreme  ignorance 
into  absolute  knowledge.  The  Platonic  philoso¬ 
phy  admitted  that  the  Father  and  Creator  was 
hard  to  know  and  impossible  to  express.  And  so 
Christian  theology,  of  a  thoroughly  orthodox 
type,  has  had  much  to  say  about  our  incompe¬ 
tence  to  grasp  the  fullness  of  God’s  being,  and 
has  been  wont  to  insist  on  the  fact  that  our  finite 
reason  in  striving  to  reach  His  ineffable  glory 
can  only  grope  awkwardly  in  terms  of  nega¬ 
tion.32  “Only  this  I  can  say,  what  He  is  not,”  St. 
Augustine  declares.  “And  now,  if  you  cannot 
comprehend  what  God  is,  at  least  comprehend 
what  He  is  not ;  it  is  much  for  you  if  you  do  not 
think  of  God  otherwise  than  He  is.”33That  is 
the  wise  humility  of  reverence,  the  recognition 
of  the  truth  that  before  the  inmost  reality  of 
things  the  intellect  of  man  must  shrink  to  a  pro- 

ssSee  Platonism  146. 

33Z)e  Trinitate  viii,  2. — In  his  Theological  Orations  II,  4,  Gregory 
Nazianzen  rebukes'  Plato  for  saying  ( Timaeus  28  c)  that  God  is 
hard  to  know  and  impossible  to  express  to  all  men.  According  to 
the  Christian  theologian  Plato’s  words  were  meant  to  convey  a 
subtle  intimation  that  he  really  knew  the  divine  nature  which  in 
fact  is  beyond  all  human  comprehension.  Passages  of  this  sort 
might  be  multiplied  indefinitely.  It  will  not  be  out  of  place  here 
to  add  that  my  chosen  phrase  the  “inner  check”  is  used  in  this 
philosophical  and  religious  sense,  not  as  denying  the  positive 
reality  of  what  is  for  us  ultimately  the  divine  faculty  but  as  dis¬ 
claiming  immediate  knowledge  of  its  nature  and  modus  operandi. 


256  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

fession  of  its  incapacity.  And  it  does  not  follow 
at  all  that  such  ignorance  cuts  man  off  from  the 
consolations  of  worship  or  even  from  a  certain 
fellowship  with  the  divine  personality.  St.  Basil 
in  one  of  his  letters  touches  the  matter  with  his 
usual  acumen : 

“  'Do  you  worship  what  you  know,  or  that  of 
which  you  are  ignorant?’  If  we  reply  that  we 
worship  what  we  know,  then  we  are  met  at  once 
with  the  question:  'What  is  the  essence  of  this 
which  you  worship  ?’  And  if  we  admit  our  ignor¬ 
ance  of  His  essence,  we  are  overwhelmed  with 
the  retort:  'Therefore  you  worship  what  you 
know  not.’  But  we  say  that  'to  know’  has  more 
than  one  meaning.  For  the  majesty  of  God  we 
say  that  we  know,  and  His  power,  and  wisdom, 
and  goodness,  and  His  providential  care  for  us, 
and  the  righteousness  of  His  judgments;  not 
His  essence.  So  that  the  question  is  unfair.  Since 
he  who  confesses  ignorance  of  God’s  essence  does 
not  thereby  admit  that  we  have  no  acquaintance 
with  God  through  those  operations  which  we 
have  mentioned.”34 

The  argument  of  the  Fathers  is  clear  and  hon¬ 
est.  Of  God’s  works  in  the  frame  of  nature  and 
in  the  human  heart  any  man  may  have  sufficient 
understanding  to  guide  him  in  the  path  of  reli¬ 
gion  and  to  the  peace  of  communion  prepared 

3 ^E'pist.  ccxxxiv  Migne. — For  a  like  idea  in  Irenaeus  and  Tertul- 
lian  see  Kidd,  A  History  of  the  Church  I,  323. 


PLOTINUS 


257 

for  all  trusting  souls;  of  God’s  love  and  com¬ 
passion  we  have  sufficient  revelation  in  the  in¬ 
carnate  Son;  but  of  God  Himself  and  the  ulti¬ 
mate  mystery  of  the  Divine  only  a  fool  will  say 
that  he  has  understanding,  as  only  a  fool  will  say 
that  there  is  no  God. 

Philosophy  and  religion  agree  then  in  this, 
that  they  both  leave  man  in  a  combined  state  of 
ignorance  and  knowledge,  scepticism  and  faith ; 
they  agree  in  telling  us  that  we  are  morally  re¬ 
sponsible  and  intellectually  impotent.  But  it  is 
against  just  such  a  limitation  of  its  authority 
that  the  intellectus  sibi  permissus  rebels,  and  it 
is  just  here  that  a  metaphysical  monism  sets  up 
its  claim.  How,  the  doubter  will  ask,  can  we 
comprehend  the  hypothetic  One  to  which  all  at¬ 
tributes  are  denied?  Plow  can  we  think  of  that 
which  is  beyond  thinking  and  thought?  It  might 
seem  as  if  metaphysics  had  deprived  us  even  of 
the  practical  half-knowledge  vouchsafed  by  re¬ 
ligious  philosophy.  But  no:  reason  is  resolute 
and  cunning ;  it  is  ready  at  hand  to  hypostatize 
the  very  incomprehensibility  of  God’s  being  into 
a  comprehensible  Not-Being,  saying  to  itself: 
“Because  I  know  Him  not,  therefore  I  know 
His  essence  as  pure  negation.”  Taken  alone  such 
a  vaunt  rather  savours  of  verbal  quibbling ;  there 


258  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

is  not  much  satisfaction  for  the  hungry  heart  or 
the  ambitious  brain  in  abstractions  of  this  sort. 
But  joined  to  mysticism  it  acquires,  and  lends, 
a  factitious  reality.  By  a  coalescence  of  the  il¬ 
lusion  of  the  emotions  with  the  legerdemain  of 
logic  the  fabulous  Not-Being  will  impose  itself 
on  the  believer  as  an  equivalent  for  the  fullness 
of  infinite  being,  and  the  absolute  One  will  seem 
to  be  the  negation  of  multiplicity  only  because 
it  embraces  all  things.  Ignorance  has  swooned 
into  perfect  knowledge. 

The  consequences  of  this  metaphysical  abuse 
of  an  experience  questionable  in  itself  are  writ¬ 
ten  at  large  through  the  Enneads  and  the  lit¬ 
erature  derived  from  them.  As  a  protest  against 
the  material  monism  of  Epicurus  and  Zeno  the 
spirituality  of  Plotinus  has  a  lasting  religious 
value ;  but  as  a  spiritual  monism  it  cannot  avoid 
the  charge  of  running  out  into  a  mockery  of 
tantalizing  paradoxes.  Evil  in  this  actual  life 
has  been  virtually  juggled  out  of  existence.  In 
the  noetic  heaven,  conceived  as  universal  Nous 
lost  in  contemplation  of  its  own  thoughts,  there 
is  no  place  for  memory  of  our  lessons  in  the  phe¬ 
nomenal  world,  no  continuity  of  moral  respon¬ 
sibility,  no  spiritual  adventure  in  a  new  world 
of  veritable  Ideas,  no  place  for  the  soul  as  an 


PLOTINUS 


259 

enduring  and  individual  entity,  no  immortality 
that  corresponds  to  the  craving  of  human  na¬ 
ture.  In  the  final  stage  of  absorption  there  is 
nothing,  no  approach  to  a  divine  Ruler  con¬ 
sciously  engaged  in  the  tasks  of  providence,  no 
communion  with  a  personality  who  can  feel  as 
man  feels, — there  is  only  the  oblivion  of  a  per¬ 
fection  that  annihilates  what  is  perfected.  In  a 
universe  so  constituted  worship  becomes  a  vapid 
form,  faith  loses  its  substance,  hope  is  emptied 
of  comfort.35 

The  rationalism  of  Plotinus,  like  that  of  Epi¬ 
curus  and  Zeno,  was  a  self-willed  effort  to  tran¬ 
scend  the  limitations  which  the  dualist  accepts 
humbly  as  a  necessity  of  our  mortal  state;  the 
inevitable  result  of  grasping  at  the  forbidden 
Tree  of  Knowledge  is  to  dissolve  philosophy  and 
religion  into  the  limbo  of  metaphysics.  And  the 
end  of  metaphysics  is  a  Pyrrhonic  agnosticism 
or  a  lapse  into  gross  superstition. 

3r’Plutarch,  De  Defectu  Orac.  37:  E l  S’  d\Aax60i  ttov  KavravOa  rij s 
’ AKadruuLelas  VTropupLvr/<TKOVTes  eavrods  to  dyav  rrjs  iriarecjs  dcpaipCop^ev,  Kal 
tt)v  dacpaXeLav  (oairep  iv  <r<l>a\ep<p,  rip  irepi  tt)s  &Trei.plas  \6yip ,  plivov 

diacrip  fap-ev. 


CHAPTER  VI 


DIOGENES  OF  SINOPE 

Before  taking  up  the  final  breakdown  of  the 
Hellenistic  heresies  in  scepticism  it  will  be  in 
place  to  tell  the  story  of  the  Cynic  who,  from  a 
licensed  beggar  and  buffoon,  was  transformed 
by  the  alchemy  of  tradition  into  the  legendary 
saint  of  philosophy.  In  him  the  beginning  and 
the  end  are  curiously  brought  together. 

Of  the  events  of  Diogenes’  life,  as  generally 
of  the  early  philosophers,  little  is  related,  and 
even  what  information  we  have  is  confused  and 
more  or  less  questionable.  He  was  born  in  Sinope 
of  Pontus,  but  left  home  as  an  exile.  The  cause 
of  his  banishment  is  said  to  have  been  a  charge 
of  counterfeiting  brought  against  himself  or  his 
father;  but  this  may  well  be  a  false  inference 
from  his  famous  maxim,  ‘Tie mint  the  coinage,”1 
by  which,  playing  on  the  double  sense  of  nomi- 
ma  and  nomisma ,  he  meant  to  enforce  the  cynic 

i  Ilapaxdpa^op  t6  vopuapia.  The  phrase  is  variously  translated:  “re¬ 
mint  the  coinage,”  “falsify  the  currency,”  “restamp  the  mint¬ 
age,”  etc. 


260 


DIOGENES  OF  SINOPE  '  261 

trans valuation  of  all  moral  values.  When  re¬ 
proached  with  the  fact  that  the  people  of  his 
town  had  condemned  him  to  exile,  his  reply  was, 
“And  I  condemned  them  to  remain  in  Sinope.” 
At  any  rate  to  Athens  he  came,  and  there  for  a 
while  attached  himself  to  Antisthenes,  forced 
himself  on  the  unwilling  teacher,  it  is  said,  by 
vowing  that  no  stick  was  hard  enough  to  drive 
him  away.  In  time  he  became  the  typical  Cynic, 
accepting  the  epithet  blandly  with  the  remark 
that  if  he  was  a  “dog”  it  was  not  because  he  bit 
his  enemies,  but  because  he  snarled  at  his  friends 
for  their  salvation.  Apparently  he  travelled  about 
a  good  deal,  and  more  especially  haunted  the 
Panhellenic  games  and  other  celebrations,  where 
among  the  crowds  of  idlers  he  could  exercise  his 
gift  of  scoffing  wit.  He  had  his  following,  and 
even  seems  at  times  to  have  given  regular  courses 
of  instruction,  though  how  and  where  and  in 
what  it  is  hard  to  say.2  At  some  date  in  his  ca¬ 
reer  he  was  captured  by  pirates,  and  when  put 
up  for  sale  in  the  slave-market  greeted  prospec¬ 
tive  purchasers  with  his  customary  insolence: 
“Come,  buy  a  master!”  For  a  number  of  years 
he  served  as  pedagogue  to  the  children  of  Xeni- 
ades  in  Corinth,  seeming  to  enjoy  great  liberty, 


2For  Diogenes  as  a  serious  teacher  of  philosophy  see  H.  von  Ar- 
nim,  Dio  von  Prusa  37  ff. 


262  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

whether  as  slave  or  freedman.  He  died  in  323 
b.c.  in  extreme  old  age,  on  the  same  day,  tradi¬ 
tion  said,  with  Alexander. 

That  is  a  scant  biography,  and  in  fact  it  serves, 
as  in  the  case  of  Aristippus,  merely  as  frame¬ 
work  for  a  collection  of  the  pithy  sayings  actu¬ 
ally  uttered  by  Diogenes  or  attributed  to  him. 
From  the  mass  of  these  memorabilia  recorded 
by  his  namesake  of  Laerte  I  select  a  few  of  the 
more  characteristic : — 

“Once  when  Plato  had  invited  him  and  certain 
friends  to  dinner,  Diogenes  trampled  on  his  rugs 
with  the  remark,  T  am  trampling  on  Plato’s 
vanity.’  To  which  Plato,  ‘With  what  vanity  of 
your  own,  Diogenes!’  ” 

“He  went  about  with  a  lighted  lamp  one  day, 
saying,  T  am  looking  for  a  man.’  ” 

“Once  he  was  begging  of  a  statue,  and,  being 
asked  why  he  did  so,  replied,  T  am  learning  to 
meet  with  refusal.’  ” 

“To  the  query  when  was  the  time  to  marry  he 
answered,  ‘For  young  men  not  yet,  for  old  men 
no  longer.’  ”3 

“He  was  entering  a  theatre  when  the  crowd 
was  leaving,  and  being  asked  why,  he  said,  ‘This 
has  been  my  practice  all  my  life.’  ” 

To  these  anecdotes  may  be  added  a  few  from 


3Diog.  Laert.  has  roi)s  di  irpea^vT^povs  pL^deirunroTe.  Surely  the  word 
should  be  plt]k£ti. 


DIOGENES  OF  SINOPE  263 

the  numerous  references  scattered  through  Plu¬ 
tarch’s  Essays: — 

“He  said  that  the  safest  course  for  a  man  was 
to  possess  good  friends  and  hot-tempered  ene¬ 
mies  ;  for  the  former  will  instruct  him  and  the 
latter  will  lay  bare  his  faults.” 

“To  the  question  how  one  should  get  the  bet¬ 
ter  of  an  enemy  he  answered,  ‘By  making  one’s 
self  a  true  gentleman.’  ” 

“When  some  one  was  praising  Plato,  he  asked : 
‘Why  should  that  fellow  be  proud,  who  has  been 
playing  the  philosopher  all  these  years  and  never 
caused  a  pang  to  any  one?’  ” 

“Catching  a  boy  making  a  pig  of  himself,  he 
gave  a  slap  to  the  boy’s  guardian,  rightly  putting 
the  blame  not  on  him  who  had  learned  no  better 
but  on  him  who  had  taught  no  better.”4 

“  ‘These  men  are  laughing  at  you,  Diogenes.’ 
‘But  I  am  not  laughed  at.’  ”5 

(On  the  possible  blessings  of  exile):  “Lei¬ 
sure,  walks,  reading,  undisturbed  slumber  ;6  the 
boast  of  Diogenes,  ‘Aristotle  breakfasts  when  it 
pleases  Philip,  Diogenes  when  it  pleases  Diog- 
enes. 

These  braggart  and  for  the  most  part  petu- 

4Cf.  Sophocles,  Philoctetes  387  f: 

01  8'  aKoapiOvvTes  fipoT&v 
8L8aaKa\(vv  \6youri  yLyvovrai  KaKot. 

5 The  Cynic  version  of  the  Aristippean  Habeo,  non  habeor. 

sMoralia  604  n:  2%oX7?  TrepLiraros  avayvajais  inrpos  ddopv^Tjros — could 
the  scholar’s  life  be  described  more  beautifully? 


264  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

lant  sentences  may  look  poorly  for  the  baggage 
of  one  who  was  to  be  the  canonized  saint  of  phi¬ 
losophy,  yet  if  we  examine  them  we  can  see  how 
they  bear  directly  on  the  goal  towards  which  all 
the  Socratic  sects  were  striving.  Security,  in  one 
form  or  another,  had  been  the  aim  of  Aristippus 
and  of  Antisthenes,  as  indeed  it  was  of  all  their 
followers ;  and  above  any  one  of  them  Diogenes 
could  boast  this  advantage  from  his  philosophy, 
“that  he  had  prepared  himself  for  every  hazard 
of  fate.”  For  what  adversity  could  happen  to  a 
man  who  was,  in  the  words  of  the  tragedian, 

“Cityless,  hearthless,  reft  of  fatherland, 

A  wanderer  begging  food  from  hand  to  hand”  ? 

Socrates  had  attained  security  by  character  and 
by  the  power  of  endurance ;  Diogenes  would  do 
more,  he  would  not  wait  upon  the  assaults  of 
Fortune  but  would  go  out  voluntarily  to  meet 
her.  So,  at  the  sight  of  a  mouse  running  about 
at  night  with  no  need  of  a  sleeping  place  or  fear 
of  the  dark,  he  sets  himself  to  harden  life  by 
giving  up  everything  save  a  few  necessary  uten¬ 
sils.  Later,  when  he  sees  a  boy  drinking  out  of 
his  hands,  he  even  throws  away  the  cup  he  had 
retained.  And  when  the  little  house  he  has  or¬ 
dered  is  not  ready  for  him,  he  makes  his  abode 


DIOGENES  OF  SINOPE 


265 

in  one  of  the  great  water- jars  lying  by  a  temple. 
So  he  would  flout  the  hedonist,  and  prove  that 
“the  contempt  of  pleasure  is  the  truest  pleasure 
after  all.” 

Liberty  was  the  other  lesson  that  the  Socrat- 
ics  had  learned  from  their  master — unless  it 
should  be  called  only  a  phase  of  security — and 
liberty  also  was  carried  by  Diogenes  to  the  last 
point  of  licence  ( parrhesia ) .  The  tongues  of  or¬ 
dinary  men  might  be  hushed  by  reverence  or 
fear,  but  not  the  genuine  Cynic’s.  When  Alex¬ 
ander  stands  beside  him  while  he  is  sunning  him¬ 
self  in  one  of  the  gymnasium  courts  of  Corinth, 
and  asks  if  he  would  have  any  favour,  his  reply 
is,  “Yes,  remove  your  shadow  from  me.”  Ordi¬ 
nary  men  might  submit  to  the  conventional  de¬ 
cencies  of  life  out  of  respect  for  public  opinion 
if  for  no  other  reason,  but  not  Diogenes:  with 
incredible  effrontery  he  chose  the  open  highways 
to  exhibit  the  most  disgusting  acts.  Security  and 
liberty,  he  thought,  were  the  fruit  of  obeying 
nature  and  spurning  law  and  custom;  and  in 
this  way  he  did,  to  the  amazement  of  Philistine 
and  philosopher,  effect  the  transvaluation  of  all 
values  of  which  the  Sophists  had  talked,  and 
over  which  in  these  latter  days  certain  so-called 
naturalists  still  rave. 


266 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


And  the  world  was  amazed,  and  did  not  for¬ 
get.  In  the  fragmentary  state  of  our  informa¬ 
tion  we  cannot  trace  all  the  steps  by  which  Diog¬ 
enes  grew  into  a  legendary  figure,  but  the  main 
course  of  the  progress  is  pretty  clear.  At  an  early 
date  collections  of  memorabilia  were  made,  into 
which  no  doubt  genuine  and  spurious  anecdotes 
were  thrown  together  with  little  discrimination. 
Any  current  witticism  or  bold  story  with  the  true 
cynical  ring  would  naturally  gravitate  to  the 
great  exemplar  of  Cynicism.  It  was  on  these 
memorabilia  chiefly  that  Diogenes  Laertius  drew 
for  his  so-called  biography.  Meanwhile  the  pop¬ 
ular  professors  of  philosophy  were  busy  expand¬ 
ing  and  embroidering  and  altering.  To  Bion  of 
Borysthenes,  pupil  of  Crates  who  himself  was  a 
pupil  of  Diogenes,  is  ascribed  the  invention  of 
the  brief  exhortatory  address,  the  influence  of 
which  is  still  seen  in  the  Discourses  of  Epicte¬ 
tus  and  in  the  earlier  appeals  of  Christian  preach¬ 
ers  to  the  populace.  So  far  as  we  can  judge  from 
the  tradition  there  was  little  teaching  of  a  posi¬ 
tive  sort  in  Bion,  but  mainly  criticism  of  conven¬ 
tional  life  and  morals  in  a  cynical  vein.  To  lend 
vivacity  to  his  diatribes  he  employed  freely  the 
Socratic  dialogue,  in  the  form  of  terse  question 
and  answer,  examples  of  which  may  be  found 


DIOGENES  OF  SINOPE  267 

in  the  works  of  Plato.  But  in  Bion  it  is  clear 
that  Diogenes  begins  to  displace  Socrates  as  the 
spokesman  of  wisdom. 

More  is  known  of  Teles,  a  wandering  preach¬ 
er  and  pedagogue  of  the  third  century  b.c.,  who 
imitated  and  quoted  Bion,  and  of  whose  dia¬ 
tribes  considerable  fragments  have  been  pre¬ 
served  in  abridgement.  They  are  dry  enough 
reading,  at  least  as  they  have  come  down  to  us, 
but  they  have  some  value  as  indications  of  the 
way  in  which  the  legend  of  Diogenes  was  tak¬ 
ing  shape.  And  in  the  second  discourse  (Hense) 
the  position  of  the  Cynic  philosophy  between 
the  optimistic  endurance  of  Socrates  and  the 
dogmatic  optimism  of  the  Porch  is  shown  in  a 
manner  not  without  historical  interest.  Teles  is 
quoting  Bion: 

“As  the  biting  of  wild  beasts  depends  on  the 
way  you  take  them — for  instance,  grasp  a  snake 
by  the  middle  and  you  will  be  bitten,  grasp  him 
by  the  neck  and  you  are  safe — so  our  suffering 
from  circumstances  depends  on  the  opinion  we 
take  of  them.  If  your  opinion  of  them  is  like 
that  of  Socrates,  you  will  not  suffer;  otherwise 
you  will  be  made  to  suffer,  not  by  the  circum¬ 
stances  themselves,  but  by  your  own  character 
and  by  your  false  judgment.  Hence  we  should 
not  endeavour  to  alter  circumstances,  but  to 
adapt  ourselves  to  things  as  they  are.  .  .  .  And 


268 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


so,  as  I  say,  I  do  not  see  how  there  is  anything 
hard  or  painful  in  things  themselves,  such  as  old 
age  or  poverty  or  exile.” 

Socrates  would  overcome  the  evils  of  exist¬ 
ence  by  strength  of  character  and  by  trust  in  the 
ultimate  justice  of  the  gods;  the  Cynic  makes 
the  power  of  endurance  an  active  principle  of 
life,  and  attains  security  from  fear  of  suffering 
by  his  contempt  of  hardship  as  a  force  inferior 
to  his  own  energy,  and  so  in  a  way  regards  evil 
as  a  matter  of  opinion  or  self-estimation;  the 
Stoic  will  go  a  step  further  and  will  assert  that 
there  actually  is  no  evil  in  the  world  except  as 
our  opinion,  or  judgment,  imagines  it  to  be.  The 
commonplace  illustrations  of  endurance  drawn 
by  Teles  from  the  life  of  Diogenes  I  have  omitted 
in  the  quotation,  but  even  without  them  the  pas¬ 
sage  must  commend  itself  as  a  curious  and  in¬ 
structive  blend  of  these  three  stages  of  philoso- 
phy. 

The  next  step  apparently  was  taken  when 
some  unknown  rhetorician  published  a  number 
of  letters  supposed  to  have  been  written  by 
Crates  to  his  wife  Hipparchia  and  to  various 
friends.  The  compositions  are  very  brief  for  the 
most  part,  consisting  each  of  a  few  sentences  on 
some  saying  of  Diogenes  or  on  some  common- 


DIOGENES  OF  SINOPE  269 

place  of  the  Cynic  school.  In  one  Crates  instructs 
his  disciples  to  beg  the  necessaries  of  life  only 
from  those  who  are  themselves  initiated  in  phi¬ 
losophy,  for  by  so  doing  they  will  be  accepting 
what  is  their  own.  Another  note  admonishes  a 
friend  that  the  country  does  not  always  breed 
innocence  nor  the  city  vice,  and  that  if  he  desires 
his  children  to  be  good  he  should  not  send  them 
into  the  country  but  place  them  under  the  care 
of  a  philosopher;  “for,”  Crates  adds,  “virtue 
comes  by  training,  and  does  not  insinuate  itself 
into  the  soul  automatically  as  vice  does.”  Com¬ 
menting  to  another  friend  on  the  security  and 
freedom  and  salubrity  of  the  simple  life,  he  con¬ 
cludes:  “The  philosophy  that  effects  these  things 
is  the  best  of  all ;  and  if  you  do  not  find  it  else¬ 
where,  you  will  certainly  find  it  with  Diogenes, 
who  discovered  the  short  path  to  happiness.” 
And  again  the  writer  says :  “Long  is  the  path  to 
happiness  by  words  and  argument,  but  the  study 
by  daily  practice  is  short,” — which  is  good  doc¬ 
trine,  whether  preached  by  Diogenes  or  by  whom¬ 
soever.  The  most  elaborate  of  the  letters  tells  the 
story  of  Diogenes’  adventure  with  the  pirates 
as  reported  to  Crates  by  one  of  the  fellow  vic¬ 
tims  who  was  sold  into  slavery  and  redeemed. 
It  is  really  an  amusing  little  picture,  ending 


270 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


with  the  naive  statement  that  the  pirates  were 
so  impressed  by  Diogenes’  words  when  offered 
for  sale  that  they  took  him  down  from  the  block 
and  carried  him  off  to  their  haunts,  promising 
him  liberty  if  he  would  impart  to  them  his  wis¬ 
dom.  “Wherefore,”  the  reporter  ends,  “on  my 
return  home  I  did  not  send  a  ransom  for  him, 
nor  did  I  ask  you  to  send  it;  but  do  you  rejoice 
with  me  that  he  is  living  a  captive  among  the  pi¬ 
rates,  and  that  such  a  thing  has  happened  as  few 
men  will  credit.”7 

The  spurious  correspondence  of  Crates  would 
appear  to  be  an  early  creation,  and  may  go  back 
to  the  age  of  Teles.  A  similar  collection  of  let¬ 
ters,  attributed  to  Diogenes  himself,  and  ad¬ 
dressed  to  various  friends  ranging  from  Alex¬ 
ander  to  the  supposed  writer’s  mother,  must,  I 
think,  be  of  later  date.  There  are  fifty-one  of 
these  epistles, neatly  turned  and  cleverly  phrased, 
which  form  on  the  whole  one  of  the  most  enter¬ 
taining  products  from  the  rhetorical  workshop. 
And,  again,  the  method  of  composition  is  simple 
enough ;  in  most  cases  the  author  merely  takes 
one  of  the  sayings  or  doings  ascribed  to  Diog- 

7The  story  of  the  capture  and  sale  of  Diogenes  probably  has  a 
kernel  of  historic  truth.  It  seems  to  have  taken  literary  form 
under  the  hands  of  the  satirist  Menippus.  For  the  part  played  by 
Menippus  generally  in  creating  the  legend,  see  Rudolf  Helm, 
Lucian  und  Menipp  231  ff. 


DIOGENES  OF  SINOPE 


271 

enes,  and  then  about  this  builds  up  an  imaginary 
scene  from  his  life,  with  details  added  to  taste 
and  with  more  or  less  of  moralizing.  Thus,  in 
one  letter,  we  have  the  story  of  the  slave  (not  a 
child,  as  in  the  source-book  of  Diogenes  Laer¬ 
tius)  drinking  from  his  hands.  Another  repeats 
the  anecdote  of  the  water  j  ar,  with  the  addition 
that  Diogenes  got  his  hint  from  the  sight  of  a 
snail  in  its  shell.  Alexander  turns  up,  of  course ; 
he  duly  casts  a  shadow  on  the  Cynic  (who  now 
represents  himself  as  pasting  the  leaves  of  a 
book  and  needing  light  for  the  task) ,  and  he  ob¬ 
serves,  as  a  true  monarch  should,  that  if  he  were 
not  Alexander  he  would  be  Diogenes.  In  one 
note  Crates  is  advised  to  beg  of  statues,  and  in 
another  he  is  admonished  not  to  beg  of  men  un¬ 
less  he  can  give  a  quid  pro  quo  in  moral  help.  An 
anecdote  in  the  Life  tells  how  Diogenes  read 
over  the  door  of  a  newly  married  man  this  in¬ 
scription:  “Heracles  Callinicus,  son  of  Zeus, 
dwells  here;  let  no  evil  enter,”  and  how  he  mis¬ 
chievously  added  the  words:  “An  alliance  after 
the  battle.”  This  anecdote  the  letter- writer  ex¬ 
pands  into  the  pretty  tale  of  a  visit  to  Cyrene, 
where  Diogenes  sees  the  inscription  over  door 
after  door,  and  bids  the  citizens  put  “Poverty” 
in  the  place  of  “Heracles”  as  a  better  safeguard 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


272 

against  calamity  and  temptation,  or,  if  poverty 
is  too  austere  for  their  taste,  then  the  word  “  Jus¬ 
tice.  ”  So  visibly  before  our  eyes,  the  sturdy  beg¬ 
gar  and  licensed  scoffer  is  changing  to  a  model 
of  righteousness;  even  his  shocking  indecency 
is  translated  into  a  plea  for  the  sanctity  of  na¬ 
ture  which  would  satisfy  the  most  emancipated 
naturalist  of  the  twentieth  century.  One  of  the 
longer  communications,  to  an  anonymous  friend 
whom  Diogenes  has  met  at  the  Olympian  Games, 
closes  in  this  highly  edifying  tone : 

“But  I  weighed  the  gifts  of  those  who  offered 
me  bread,  and  from  those  who  had  profited  I  ac¬ 
cepted,  while  the  others  1  refused,  thinking  it 
not  a  fair  thing  to  accept  from  those  who  had  re¬ 
ceived  nothing.  And  I  did  not  dine  with  every 
body,  but  only  with  those  who  needed  my  serv¬ 
ice  as  a  healer.  .  .  .  On  one  occasion  I  went  to 
the  house  of  a  very  rich  young  man,  and  was  re¬ 
ceived  on  a  couch  in  a  room  hung  all  over  with 
pictures  and  decked  out  with  gold — so  fine  indeed 
that  there  was  nowhere  for  a  man  to  spit.  Ac¬ 
cordingly,  when  I  choked  with  phlegm  and, 
glancing  about,  could  discover  no  more  suitable 
place,  I  just  spat  on  the  youth  himself.  He  be¬ 
gan  to  scold  at  this ;  but  I  stopped  him  with  the 
words:  ‘You’ — and  I  named  him — 'why  do  you 
blame  me  for  what  has  happened,  instead  of 
yourself  ?  Here  you  have  adorned  the  walls  and 
floor  of  your  room,  and  have  left  yourself  un- 


DIOGENES  OF  SINOPE 


273 

adorned  as  the  only  fit  place  to  be  so  used.’  ‘Your 
language,’  he  replied,  ‘seems  to  intimate  that  I 
am  an  uneducated  boor ;  but  you  shall  not  have  a 
chance  to  say  this  to  me  again,  for  I  am  going  to 
stick  close  to  your  side  henceforth.’  And  in  fact, 
on  the  very  next  day,  he  disposed  of  all  his  prop¬ 
erty  to  his  family,  put  on  the  Cynic’s  knapsack, 
folded  his  cloak,  and  followed  me.  These  things 
were  done  by  me  in  Olympia  after  your  depart- 
ure. 

These  are  the  things,  indeed,  done  by  the 
Diogenes  of  the  epistles,  but  one  may  doubt 
whether  the  words  and  deeds  of  the  actual  man 
were  quite  so  pious  in  their  intention.  If  the 
closing  incident  at  Olympia  reads  like  a  carica¬ 
ture  of  a  scene  in  the  Gospels,  where,  however, 
the  rich  young  man  did  not  follow,  but  went 
away,  leaving  the  Master  sad,  there  is  another 
letter  which  describes  the  conversion  of  Diog¬ 
enes  himself  in  a  manner  suitable  almost,  bar¬ 
ring  the  whimsical  conclusion,  for  the  investi¬ 
ture  of  a  Galahad  in  the  insignia  of  Christian 
knighthood.  The  newly  appointed  Cynic  is  sup¬ 
posed  to  be  writing  back  to  the  home  he  has  re¬ 
cently  left : 

“I  am  at  Athens,  dear  father,  and,  having 
heard  that  the  companion  of  Socrates  wasteach¬ 
inghappiness,  I  betookmyself  to  him.  He  chanced 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


274 

at  the  time  to  be  lecturing  about  the  paths  leading 
thither.  They  are  two,  he  was  saying,  and  not 
many,  the  one  short,  the  other  long;  and  it  lies 
with  each  man  to  choose  for  himself  by  which  of 
them  he  will  go.  I  listened  and  said  nothing;  but 
on  the  following  day  I  returned  to  his  house,  and 
besought  him  to  expound  to  us  the  nature  of  these 
two  paths.  He  was  quite  ready,  and,  leaving  his 
seat,  took  us  into  the  city,  and  through  the  city 
straight  to  the  Acropolis.  And, when  we  had  come 
to  its  foot,  he  showed  us  that  there  were  two  paths 
up  to  the  height,  one  short  and  steep  and  diffi¬ 
cult,  the  other  long  and  gentle  and  easy.  And, 
‘these,’  he  said,  ‘are  the  ways  leading  to  the  Acrop¬ 
olis,  and  the  ways  to  happiness  are  like  them.  E  ach 
of  you  may  choose  which  he  will,  and  I  will  be 
your  guide.’  At  this  the  others  shrank  back  in 
alarm  from  the  difficulty  and  steepness  of  the 
shorter  path,  and  begged  him  to  conduct  them 
by  the  longer  and  gentler;  only  I,  feeling  my 
superiority  to  hardship,  preferred  the  steep  and 
difficult  road,  for  the  desire  of  happiness  was  ur¬ 
gent  upon  me  though  it  should  carry  me  through 
lire  and  swords.  And  then,  when  I  had  chosen 
this  path,  he  divested  me  of  my  robe  and  tunic, 
and  threw  about  me  a  folded  cloak,  and  hung  a 
knapsack  upon  my  shoulder,  first  putting  in  it 
bread  and  a  bit  of  coarse  cake  and  a  cup  and 
plate,  and  attaching  to  it  outside  an  oil-flask  and 
a  strigil.  He  gave  me  also  a  staff;  and  so  he 
fitted  me  out. 

“And  I  asked  him  why  the  cloak  he  had  thrown 


DIOGENES  OF  SINOPE 


275 

over  me  was  doubled.  ‘In  order  that  I  may  train 
you  for  both  states/  he  replied,  ‘for  the  heat  of 
summer  and  the  cold  of  winter.’  ‘But  why,’  I 
asked,  ‘would  not  a  single  cloak  suffice  for  that?’ 
‘No,’  answered  he;  ‘that  would  be  a  comfort  in 
summer,  but  in  winter  too  great  an  infliction  for 
human  endurance.’8  ‘And  the  knapsack,  why 
have  you  hung  that  upon  me?’  ‘That  you  may 
carry  your  home  about  with  you,’  said  he,  ‘wher¬ 
ever  you  go.’  ‘And  the  cup  and  plate,  why  did 
you  put  them  in  it?’  ‘Because,’  said  he,  ‘you must 
drink,  and  you  must  have  something  to  go  with 
your  bread,  nasturtium  seed  or  the  like.’  ‘And  the 
oil-flask  and  strigil,  why  did  you  attach  these?’ 
‘One,’  said  he,  ‘is  for  your  labours,  the  other 
for  cleanliness.’  ‘And  why  the  staff?’  I  asked. 
‘For  security,’  said  he.  ‘Against  what?’ ‘Against 
that  for  which  the  gods  used  it,  against  the 
poets.’  ” 

The  date  of  these  letters  cannot  be  determined 
exactly,  but  from  their  character  it  is  pretty  clear 
that  they  are  earlier  than  Dio  Chrysostom  and 
Epictetus,  by  whose  time  the  buffoon  of  Athens 
and  Corinth  has  been  completely  transformed 
into  a  personification  of  sacred  wisdom. 

Dio  was  an  eminent  rhetorician  of  a  distin¬ 
guished  family  of  Prusa  in  Bithynia,  who,  for 
court  reasons,  was  banished  from  Italy  and  his 


8Crates  in  one  of  his  letters  says  that  Diogenes  never  wore  the 
Cynic’s  cloak. 


276  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

native  province  in  the  year  a.d.  82.  During  his 
period  of  wandering  exile  he  underwent  a  con¬ 
version  from  rhetoric  to  philosophy.  Later  he 
came  into  court  favour  again,  and  was  particu¬ 
larly  intimate  with  Trajan.  Apparently  one  of 
the  first  fruits  of  his  conversion  was  a  group  of 
essays  wherein  the  ardent  acolyte  in  philosophy 
preached  Diogenes  to  a  surfeited  world  as  a 
model  of  the  simple  life.  And  it  is  curious  to  see 
how  he  constructs  these  essays.  The  method  is 
precisely  the  same  as  in  the  case  of  the  letters, 
except  that,  in  place  of  little  scenes  from  Diog¬ 
enes’  life  drawn  for  moral  edification,  we  now 
have  full-blown  sermons,  some  of  which  might 
have  graced  a  Christian  pulpit.  So  the  fourth 
Oration  (Yon  Arnim)  grows  and  expands  out 
of  the  reputed  meeting  with  Alexander.  The  cir¬ 
cumstances  are  described  more  minutely  than 
in  the  letter  and  have  all  the  air  of  an  historical 
novel.  The  King  is  in  Corinth  on  political  busi¬ 
ness,  and,  telling  his  retinue  that  he  desires  to  be 
alone,  goes  off  to  visit  the  famous  Cynic — not 
to  his  door,  for  door  or  house  the  sage  has  none, 
but  accounts  the  whole  city  his  home,  and  at 
that  particular  time  is  residing  at  ease  in  the 
court  of  a  gymnasium.  There  Alexander  finds 
him  squat  upon  the  ground;  and  we  are  told 


DIOGENES  OF  SINOPE  277 

how,  on  being  greeted,  the  Cynic  looked  up  at 
the  intruder  with  the  savage  glare  of  a  lion,  and 
bade  him  stand  aside  a  little.  Alexander,  like  the 
good  prince  in  a  fairy  tale,  admires  the  man’s 
audacity ;  for  that  is  the  character  of  the  brave 
everywhere,  to  love  freedom  and  truth  and  to 
hate  falsehood  and  flattery.  Whereupon  king 
and  philosopher  enter  into  a  conversation, which 
trails  out  in  a  long  lecture  from  the  one  on  the 
virtues  and  duties  of  a  ruler,  with  a  few  humble 
questions  interposed  by  the  other.  And,  as  if  that 
were  not  sufficient,  another  essay  gives  an  ex¬ 
tended  comparison  between  the  life  of  a  phi¬ 
losopher  and  that  of  the  Great  King,  all  placed 
in  the  mouth  of  Diogenes,  and  all,  needless  to 
say,  going  to  prove  that  in  virtue  and  security 
and  true  happiness  the  beggar  in  his  tub  is  in¬ 
finitely  superior  to  the  Persian  monarch  in  his 
palace.9  It  is  a  pity  rather  to  find  the  burly  ruf¬ 
fian  thus  smoothed  out  into  a  prig;  but  these 
common-places  seem  to  have  been  listened  to 
seriously  at  the  time,  and  they  have  gone  on 
echoing  through  literature  down  to  a  compara¬ 
tively  recent  date.  Bolingbroke’s  treatise  on  the 
Idea  of  a  Patriot  King  is  one  of  their  latest  man- 

o  A  beautiful  illustration  of  the  way  in  which  a  true  and  practical 
thesis  of  Plato’s  (cf.  Gorgias  470  e)  is  transformed  by  rhetoric 
into  a  flaunting  paradox. 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


278 

ifestations,  and  that  idea,  working  in  the  mind 
of  George  the  Third,  helped  to  make  a  good  deal 
of  sad  history. 

Again  Dio  takes  up  the  brief  statement  of 
Diogenes’  presence  at  the  Games  and  develops 
it  into  an  edifying  discourse  in  which  the  Cynic 
appears  at  once  as  text  and  expounder.  Now  we 
see  him  in  the  throng  streaming  from  Corinth 
to  the  Isthmian  Games.  Some  one  asks  him  if 
he  too  is  going  to  be  a  spectator,  and  he  replies, 
“No,  but  a  contestant.”  And  then,  when  his  in¬ 
terlocutor  laughs  and  begs  to  know  who  his  an¬ 
tagonists  may  be,  he  launches  into  a  terrific  dia¬ 
tribe  on  his  own  mighty  combats  with  pain  and 
pleasure  as  compared  with  the  poor  sport  of 
wrestlers  and  boxers.  The  moral  of  the  sermon 
is  that  the  true  athlete  will  go  out  to  meet  labour 
and  pain  and  grapple  with  them  and  throw  them, 
but  the  strongest  man  is  he  who  flees  the  furthest 
from  pleasure,  for  pleasure  is  an  antagonist  never 
to  be  conquered  at  close  quarters.  That  is  the 
kernel  of  the  matter;  but  Diogenes’  exposition 
must  have  held  his  travelling  companion  all  the 
way  out  to  the  sacred  grove  of  Poseidon,  where 
no  doubt  the  patient  hearer  made  an  escape. 

Elsewhere  we  learn  that  Diogenes  was  the 
original  primitivist.  Zeus  punished  Prometheus, 


DIOGENES  OF  SINOPE 


279 

he  thought,  not  in  envy  or  hatred  of  mankind, 
but  because  the  gift  of  fire  was  the  source  of  lux¬ 
ury  and  all  the  woes  of  civilization.  And  when 
some  one  remarked  that  men  are  tender  and 
naked  and  need  artificial  warmth  as  other  beasts 
do  not,  Diogenes  pointed  scornfully  to  the  frogs, 
who  have  less  hair  on  them  than  men,  yet  can  live 
comfortably  in  the  coldest  water.10  As  for  the 
exhibitionism  (if  I  may  use  the  hideous  word) 
by  which  Diogenes  sought  to  shock  men  out 
of  their  complacent  acceptance  of  conventions, 
there  is  no  shirking  the  worst  of  it  by  Dio,  on  the 
ground  that  deeds  speak  louder  than  words,  as 
no  doubt  they  do ;  but  the  stories  would  corrode 
the  paper  of  a  modern  book. 

Dio  is  not  altogether  at  his  best  in  these  re¬ 
suscitations  of  the  old  Cynic.  The  invention  is 
too  palpable ;  and  one  is  tempted  to  discredit  his 
praises  of  poverty  and  hardship  as  meaning  no 
more  than  the  common  trick  of  the  rhetoricians 
who  sought  applause  by  their  contorted  encom¬ 
iums  of  flies  or  smoke  or  baldness  or  gout  or 
fever  or  vomiting  or  anything  else  calculated  to 
astound  an  audience  satiated  with  eloquence. 
Yet  one  cannot  study  the  life  of  Dio  or  go 

loCompare  the  Socratic  retort  to  Protagoras  ( Theaetetus  161  c), 
that  he  might  as  well  make  a  tadpole,  instead  of  man,  the  meas¬ 
ure  of  all  things. 


280  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

through  all  his  Orations  without  feeling  that 
there  was  more  in  the  man  than  this  and  that  he 
really  had  a  message  to  deliver.  The  contrast  be¬ 
tween  philosopher  and  tyrant  may  ring  hollow 
when  Diogenes  is  represented  as  haranguing 
Alexander  in  the  gymnasium  of  Corinth,  but  the 
common-places  on  the  duties  and  toils  of  king- 
ship  take  a  different  colour  when  actually  pro¬ 
nounced  by  the  same  Dio  before  Trajan  and  his 
court.  “Do  not  fear  that  I  shall  flatter  you,”  said 
the  preacher,  facing  the  ruler  of  the  world;  “it 
is  long  since  I  gave  proofs  of  my  independence. 
Formerly  [under  Domitian],  when  everybody 
felt  obliged  to  prevaricate,  I  alone  was  not  afraid 
to  utter  the  truth  at  the  risk  of  my  life.  And  now, 
when  there  is  permission  to  speak  freely,  I  am 
not  likely  to  be  so  inconsistent  as  to  surren¬ 
der  the  granted  liberty.  And  why  should  I  lie  ? 
To  gain  money,  applause,  glory?  But  money  I 
have  never  been  willing  to  take,  though  often  it 
has  been  offered  to  me ;  and  what  fortune  I  pos¬ 
sessed  of  my  own,  I  gave  away  and  dissipated 
for  others,  as  I  should  do  today  had  I  anything 
to  give.”  The  saintly  robes  of  the  old  Cynic  may 
have  been  the  work  of  legendary  weavers,  but 
his  example  was  strong  enough  four  centuries 
after  his  death  to  inspire  a  few  men  who  were 


DIOGENES  OF  SINOPE 


281 

striving  for  simplicity  and  sincerity  and  abstin¬ 
ence  in  a  society  at  once  brutal  in  its  excesses 
and  terrified  by  its  doubts.  And  at  times  a  higher 
note  breaks  through  the  moralizing  of  a  some¬ 
what  sentimental  primitivism.  The  tenth  Ora¬ 
tion  represents  Diogenes  as  holding  forth  on  the 
true  nature  of  man’s  intercourse  with  God,  re¬ 
buking  the  common  practice  of  praying  for 
worldly  gifts  and  prosperity,  and  ridiculing  the 
folly  of  wresting  the  oracular  commands  into 
permission  to  follow  our  own  desires. 

With  Dio,  notwithstanding  the  sincerity  of 
his  conversion,  one  feels  that  he  never  quite  put 
off  the  old  rhetorical  man,  and  that  always  he 
was  as  much  interested  in  displaying  literary 
talent  as  in  enforcing  a  moral  truth.  But  with 
Epictetus  we  enter  into  a  purer  region,  where 
no  suspicion  of  vanity  mars  the  effect.  And  this 
change  is  felt  immediately  in  his  use  of  Diog¬ 
enes.  The  old  themes  recur  which  the  rhetoric¬ 
ians  had  worn  threadbare,  the  same  lessons  are 
drawn,  but  with  a  vigour  and  earnestness  of 
tone,  with  a  breath  of  new  inspiration,  one  might 
say,  that  lift  them  into  the  plane  of  true  philoso¬ 
phy.  One  of  the  traditional  stories  told  how, 
after  the  battle  of  Chaeronea,  Diogenes  was 
taken  prisoner  and  carried  to  Philip,  and  how, 


282 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


being  asked  who  he  was,  he  replied:  “A  spy  up¬ 
on  your  insatiability.”  The  witticism  is  remem¬ 
bered  by  Epictetus ;  but  now  the  world  itself  be¬ 
comes  the  battle-field,  and  life  a  warfare,  where¬ 
in  the  Cynic’s  mission  is  to  release  himself  from 
all  other  obligations  in  order  that  he  may  be  de¬ 
voted  solely  to  the  service  of  God.  So  it  is  he  goes 
to  and  fro  among  men,  without  being  involved 
in  personal  relations,  which  if  he  violates  he  will 
lose  his  character  as  a  good  man,  and  which  if  he 
maintains  he  will  destroy  the  Spy  and  Messen¬ 
ger  and  Herald  of  the  gods  that  is  in  him.  Hence 
Diogenes  lived  without  city  or  hearth  or  prop¬ 
erty  or  slave,  sleeping  on  the  ground,  with  only 
earth  and  sky  and  one  poor  cloak  for  his  furni¬ 
ture,  yet  lacking  nothing,  blaming  no  man,  fear¬ 
ing  no  man,  the  master  of  himself  and  of  For¬ 
tune.11  We,  exclaims  Epictetus,  looking  at  the 
Cynics  of  his  day,  “dogs  of  the  table,  guardians 
of  the  gate,”  who  copy  those  of  old  in  nothing 
except  perhaps  in  dirty  habits,  do  not  compre- 

nCompare  the  epigram  of  the  Hindu  Bhartrihari: 

One  boasted:  “Lo,  the  earth  my  bed, 

This  arm  a  pillow  for  my  head. 

The  moon  my  lantern,  and  the  sky 
Stretched  o’er  me  like  a  purple  canopy. 

“No  slave-girls  have  I,  but  all  night 
The  four  winds  fan  my  slumbers  light.” — 

And  I  astonished :  Like  a  lord 
This  beggar  sleeps;  what  more  could  wealth  afford? 


DIOGENES  OF  SINOPE 


283 

hend  the  measure  of  the  greatness  of  Diogenes. 
Otherwise  we  should  not  be  astonished  at  his  ab¬ 
stention  from  marriage  and  the  getting  of  chil¬ 
dren.  The  true  Cynic  is  parent  of  all  men,  has 
all  men  for  his  sons,  all  women  for  his  daughters. 
N or  does  he  rebuke  the  erring  in  a  spirit  of  con¬ 
ceit  ;  he  corrects  them  as  a  father,  a  brother,  as 
a  servant  of  Zeus  who  is  Father  of  all.  Do  you 
think  that  Diogenes  loved  no  one,  he  who  was  so 
gentle  and  philanthropic  that  he  cheerfully  took 
upon  himself  those  great  labours  and  burdens  for 
the  common  good  of  mankind  ?  As  befits  a  servant 
of  Zeus,  he  had  always  the  care  of  the  world  at 
heart,  yet  in  submission  to  the  will  of  Providence. 
As  Heracles  accepted  the  commands  of  Eurys- 
thenes,  so  did  he  not  count  himself  wretched  un¬ 
der  the  hand  of  discipline,  or  shrink  from  pain, 
or  cry  aloud  in  indignation.  When  the  pangs  of 
fever  took  hold  of  him,  he  called  to  the  passers- 
by :  “Base  creatures,  will  you  not  stay?  You  are 
going  the  long  way  to  Olympia  to  watch  the  ath¬ 
letes  matched  in  battle,  yet  you  have  no  curios¬ 
ity  to  see  this  contest  between  fever  and  a  man.” 
And  he  won  the  victory,  as  Heracles  won  it,  pre¬ 
senting  himself  to  mankind  with  the  glow  of 
health  on  his  face,  as  an  illustration  of  the  plain 
and  simple  life  in  the  open  air,  a  model  of  ready 


284  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

wit  and  native  grace,  whose  very  squalor  was 
cleanly  and  attractive.  He  was  the  true  physi¬ 
cian.  “Men,”  he  says,  “you  are  looking  for  hap¬ 
piness  and  peace  not  where  it  is  but  where  it  is 
not.  Behold  I  have  been  sent  to  you  by  God  as 
an  example.  Try  me,  and  if  you  see  that  I  am 
at  peace  in  mind,  hear  my  remedies  and  learn  of 
me  how  I  found  healing.”  Such  was  the  philoso¬ 
pher  thought  by  Zeus  worthy  of  the  crown  and 
sceptre;  such  is  the  Kingdom  of  the  Cynic,  in 
comparison  wherewith  the  power  and  riches  and 
glory  of  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth  are  vanity.12 

Evidently  the  Stoic  sage,  or  wise  man,  so  much 
debated  in  the  schools,  has  taken  on  flesh  and 
blood  and  proved  himself  a  possibility  in  the  per¬ 
son  of  Diogenes,  while  the  philosophic  ideal  has 
been  modified  by  assimilation  to  the  historic  hero 
of  the  tub.  But  the  reader,  I  think,  cannot  fail 
also  to  be  struck  by  a  certain  similarity  between 
the  Diogenes  of  Epictetus  and  the  Christ  of  the 
Gospels,  as  one  whose  life  was  a  lesson  for  all 
mankind;  even  the  “kingdom  of  the  Cynic”  has 
a  curious  suggestion  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 
But  the  parallel  is  incomplete,  and  in  the  mind 
of  Epictetus  it  was  entirely  unconscious.  The 
last  step  remained  to  be  taken  by  Julian  the 

12Put  together  from  Discourses  III,  xxii;  III,  xxiv;  IV,  viii.  The 
language  is  largely  that  of  P.  E.  Matheson. 


DIOGENES  OF  SINOPE 


285 

Apostate,  who  gathered  together  whatever  plau¬ 
sible  hints  he  could  find  in  Greek  philosophy  and 
mythology,  blended  them  with  Persian  and  other 
Oriental  beliefs  that  had  been  overrunning  the 
Empire,  and  out  of  the  compound  brewed  a 
strange  new  religion  which,  as  he  hoped,  would 
give  to  men  all  that  was  luring  them  to  Christi¬ 
anity,  while  at  the  same  time  it  would  save  the 
world  from  the  threatened  break  with  the  nobler 
traditions  of  antiquity. 

For  centuries  the  need  of  a  mediating  divinity 
had  been  growing  upon  mankind.  The  old  naive 
faith,  which  had  held  the  gods  so  close  to  human 
society,  was  shattered  by  philosophic  specula¬ 
tion  and  general  scepticism.  Immorality  had 
spread  over  the  world  like  a  sickly  taint ;  it  may 
be  that  men  were  no  more  subject  to  the  flesh 
than  they  had  been  in  earlier  ages,  but  they  were 
more  aware  of  uncleanness  and  less  able  to  keep 
apart  their  lustfulness  and  the  normal  activities 
of  life.  Local  conventions  had  been  swept  away 
with  local  autonomy,  and  the  Empire,  which 
had  swallowed  up  city  and  State  in  its  all-level¬ 
ing  unification,  had  failed  to  check  the  moral 
disintegration,  was  in  fact  itself  showing  signs 
of  inner  decay  and  dissolution.  From  this  dis¬ 
tracted  world  the  gods  seemed  remote,  and  faith 


286 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


was  growing  cold,  or  manifested  itself  in  waves 
of  cringing  or  hysterical  superstition.  One  need 
only  read  the  prose  hymns  of  Aristides,  of  the 
second  century  of  our  era,  to  Zeus  and  Posei¬ 
don,  and  then,  after  these,  his  addresses  to  Sera- 
pis  and  Asclepius,  to  feel  the  difference  between 
the  chilly  conventional  reminiscences  of  a  dead 
worship  and  the  palpitating  warmth  of  the  new 
daemonic  naturalism.  Hence  the  growing  de¬ 
mand,  if  the  fair  Pantheon  of  Hellas  was  to  be 
preserved  at  all,  for  a  mediating  divinity  be¬ 
tween  a  troubled  world  and  the  far-off  peace  of 
the  greater  gods.  Little  help  could  be  expected 
from  pure  reason.  Indeed,  the  Neoplatonism 
which  offered  itself  to  Julian,  with  its  effort  to 
lift  the  object  of  worship  into  the  rarified  air  of 
metaphysics  where  no  human  soul  could  breathe, 
had  suffered  the  inevitable  reverse  by  falling  in¬ 
to  mystery-mongering  of  the  crudest  sort.  Mean¬ 
while  the  Logos  of  the  Christians,  at  once  the 
ineffable  glory  of  God  and  His  wisdom  present 
in  the  world,  was  supplying  what  paganism  f  ailed 
to  give.  Under  the  strain  of  such  a  need  and  with 
conscious  reference  to  the  success  of  this  hated 
rival,  the  Emperor  turned  for  succour  to  the  Sun- 
God  Helios,  who  belonged  both  to  the  lower 
realm  of  phenomena,  whither  his  light  came  down 


DIOGENES  OF  SINOPE 


287 

with  healing  purity  upon  the  living  creatures  of 
the  earth,  and  to  the  upper  realm  of  the  divine, 
where  he  shone  with  spiritual  radiance  upon  the 
gods,  thus  uniting  the  two  worlds  in  one  vast  or¬ 
ganism.  Plato,  in  the  sixth  book  of  The  lie  pub¬ 
lic,  had  long  ago  shown  how  the  sun,  as  a  visible 
symbol  of  the  Good,  offered  a  meeting  place  for 
the  Idealism  of  philosophy  and  the  stately  cult 
of  Apollo,  the  sender  of  light  and  the  patron  of 
art;  and  with  this  faith  of  ancient  Hellas  could 
now  be  united  the  more  emotional  and  mystical 
worship  of  Mithra,  the  young  conquering  deity 
out  of  the  East.  Hence  Julian’s  Hymn  to  He¬ 
lios,  surely  of  all  attempts  to  evoke  religious  fer¬ 
vour  by  a  brave  and  deliberate  effort  of  the 
imagination  the  most  extraordinary,  of  all  at¬ 
tempts  to  stay  the  deep  tides  of  change  the  most 
pathetic. 

Having  thus,  as  he  thought,  found  a  substi¬ 
tute  for  the  Christian  Logos,  the  Emperor — 
and  this  at  least  is  to  the  credit  of  his  mind  and 
heart — saw  that  little  was  accomplished  until 
he  had  inspired  the  guardians  of  the  renovated 
cult  with  the  zeal  and  virtues  of  the  Christian 
ministry.  Hence  his  Letter  to  a  Priest,  which 
has  the  unction  of  a  bishop’s  charge  to  his  cler- 


288 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


gy13  and  the  moral  fervour  of  a  Puritan  exhor¬ 
tation.  The  impious  Christians,  he  declares,  have 
gained  the  ascendency  and  drawn  men  into  athe¬ 
ism  by  their  philanthropic  care  for  the  poor  and 
neglected;  and  this  virtue  of  benevolence  must 
be  adopted  by  the  priests  of  the  gods.  Charity  to 
all  men,  good  and  evil  alike,  they  must  practise, 
and  in  their  conduct  they  must  show  such  a  spir¬ 
it  of  purity  and  piety  and  holiness  as  befits  those 
who  have  been  set  apart  to  be  ministers  to  the 
gods,  and  clothed  in  the  high  honour  of  office  in 
order  to  inspire  reverence  in  the  people.  They 
are  to  be  constant  in  prayer  and  service,  not 
given  to  profane  jests,  avoiding  the  contamina¬ 
tion  of  the  theatres,  reading  only  such  literature 
as  will  strengthen  them  in  wisdom  and  devotion. 
History  does  not  always  present  the  Christian 
priests  of  that  age,  and  especially  the  ruling 
bishops,  in  a  very  favourable  light;  they  appear 
often  as  proud  and  grasping  and  contentious 
and  uncharitable,  models  of  anything  save  the 
evangelical  virtues  of  humility  and  brotherly 

islt  may  be  fanciful,  but  the  style  of  Julian  reminds  me  of  the 
non-juring  Hickes’s  Treatises  on  the  Christian  Priesthood.  At 
least  Hickes  himself  was  not  afraid  of  the  parallel.  “Julian,”  he 
says  (Works  I,  85),  “was  a  serious  pagan,  .  .  .  and  I  have  cited 
these  things  out  of  his  works  concerning  the  common  notion  of 
priests  and  priesthood,”  etc.  Julian,  it  should  be  added,  was  not 
always  so  flattering  to  the  Christian  priests,  as,  for  instance,  in 
his  52nd  Letter. 


DIOGENES  OF  SINOPE 


289 

love.  And  history  no  doubt  has  good  warrant  for 
its  harsh  judgment.  Yet  this  letter  of  Julian 
cannot  be  left  out  of  the  account,  and  its  testi¬ 
mony,  wrung  from  a  hostile  witness,  affords  the 
strongest  and  most  unexpected  evidence  that 
the  great  body  of  the  clergy,  the  simple  men 
whom  historians  forget,  were  walking  in  the 
quiet  ways  of  duty  and  grace. 

But  something  more  was  needed  for  the  Em¬ 
peror’s  revival  than  a  mediating  god  in  the 
heavens  and  a  disciplined  priesthood.  Christian¬ 
ity  proclaimed  a  Saviour  who  was  God  yet  lived 
as  man  among  men,  and  who,  by  his  victory  over 
the  world,  was  an  example  and  present  help  for 
all  who  were  struggling  to  liberate  themselves 
from  the  bondage  of  the  flesh.  The  old  pagan 
mythology  offered  fragmentary  hints  of  such  a 
mediator  upon  earth;  there  was  Dionysus,  the 
son  of  Zeus,  who  “came  from  India  and  revealed 
himself  as  a  very  god  made  man”;  there  was 
Heracles,  who  endured  more  than  human  la¬ 
bours  to  break  the  slavery  of  mankind  and  in  the 
end  was  translated  to  Olympus  in  the  flames  of 
sacrificial  fire,  and  there  was  Asclepius,  the  di¬ 
vine  physician,  “whom  Helios,  in  providential 
care  for  the  health  and  safety  of  men,  begot  as 
the  saviour  of  the  world.”  These  myths  Julian 


290 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


adapted  to  his  creed ;  but  most  of  all  his  imagi¬ 
nation  was  kindled  by  the  story  of  Diogenes,  as 
a  helper  more  comprehensible  than  the  half¬ 
gods  and  heroes  of  the  poets  and  as  not  less  di¬ 
vine  though  fully  human.  Like  Socrates,  the 
Cynic  in  his  rough  exterior  resembled  the  Sileni 
that  sat  in  the  shops  of  the  statuaries,  while  with¬ 
in  they  contained  the  beautiful  images  of  the 
gods.  But  the  wisdom  of  Diogenes  was  deeper 
than  that  of  Socrates  and  more  immediately  in¬ 
spired.  “The  founder  of  this  philosophy,”  Ju¬ 
lian  writes  in  his  address  To  the  Uneducated 
Cynics “is  he  who,  I  believe,  is  the  cause  of  all 
the  blessings  that  the  Greeks  enjoy,  the  univer¬ 
sal  leader,  law-giver,  and  King  of  Hellas,  I 
mean  the  God  of  Delphi.  And  since  it  was  not 
permitted  that  he  should  be  in  ignorance  of 
aught,  the  peculiar  fitness  of  Diogenes  did  not 
escape  his  notice.  And  he  made  him  incline  to 
that  philosophy,  not  by  urging  his  commands 
in  words  alone,  as  he  does  for  other  men,  but  in 
very  deed  he  instructed  him  symbolically  as  to 
what  he  willed,  in  two  words,  when  he  said,  ‘Fal¬ 
sify  the  common  currency.’  For  ‘Know  thyself,’ 
he  addressed  not  only  to  Diogenes,  but  to  other 
men  also  and  still  does:  for  it  stands  there  en¬ 
graved  in  front  of  his  shrine.”  And  then  in  a 


DIOGENES  OF  SINOPE 


291 

succession  of  striking  paragraphs  Julian  ex¬ 
pounds  this  philosophy  of  which  Diogenes  is  the 
spokesman  and  personification,  and  by  which  he 
was  raised  up  to  be  the  saviour  of  mankind. 

Now  the  goal  of  the  Cynic  doctrine,  as  of  all 
genuine  philosophy,  is  happiness,  and  happi¬ 
ness  consists  in  living  in  accordance  with  one’s 
nature.  So  to  live  is  to  recognize  the  godlike 
part  of  one’s  being,  the  soul,  or  reason,  as  the 
true  man ;  and  this  is  to  know  one’s  self.  Such  is 
the  first  command  of  Apollo,  which  all  visitors 
may  hear  and  read.  And  the  second  command, 
which  only  Diogenes  comprehended  in  its  full 
scope,  was  like  unto  it,  “llemint  the  coinage.” 
The  coinage  is  simply  the  mass  of  current  cus¬ 
toms  and  conventions ;  and  these  the  Cynic  must 
disregard,  stamping  a  private  currency  for  him¬ 
self ,  so  to  speak,  with  the  image  of  his  own  inner 
nature.  What  has  he  to  do  with  the  opinions  of 
the  deluded  mob  ?  Men  are  trading  for  honours 
and  riches  and  the  comforts  of  life,  which  they 
regard  as  precious  and  worthy  of  labour  and 
sacrifice.  Not  so  Diogenes,  who  owned  nothing, 
toiled  for  nothing,  desired  nothing,  envied  no 
man,  caring  only  “to  loaf  and  invite  his  soul” : 

“Cityless,  hearthless,  reft  of  fatherland, 

A  wanderer  begging  food  from  hand  to  hand.” 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


292 

But  to  exhibit  the  complete  mastery  of  the 
soul  and  to  express  in  visible  deeds  the  false 
standards  of  society  the  Diogenes  of  the  Homan 
Emperor  went  beyond  mere  renunciation  to  a 
contemptuous  “abuse  of  the  flesh.”  The  body 
was  a  slave,  and  should  be  treated  as  such : 

“Then  let  him  who  wishes  to  be  a  Cynic,  earn¬ 
est  and  sincere,  first  take  himself  in  hand  like 
Diogenes  and  Crates,  and  expel  from  his  own 
soul  and  from  every  part  of  it  all  passions  and 
desires,  and  entrust  all  his  affairs  to  reason  and 
intelligence  and  steer  his  course  by  them.  For 
this  in  my  opinion  was  the  sum  and  substance 
of  the  philosophy  of  Diogenes.  And  if  Diog¬ 
enes  did  sometimes  visit  a  courtesan — though 
even  this  happened  only  once  perhaps  or  not 
even  once — let  him  who  would  be  a  Cynic  first 
satisfy  us  that  he  is,  like  Diogenes,  a  man  of  solid 
worth,  and  then  if  he  see  fit  to  do  that  sort  of 
thing  openly  and  in  the  sight  of  all  men,  we  shall 
not  reproach  him  with  it  or  accuse  him.  .  .  .  He 
must  show  the  same  independence,  self-sufficien¬ 
cy,  justice,  moderation,  piety,  gratitude,  and  the 
same  extreme  carefulness  not  to  act  at  random 
or  without  a  purpose  or  irrationally.  For  these 
too  are  characteristic  of  the  philosophy  of  Diog¬ 
enes.  Then  let  him  trample  on  vaingloriousness, 
let  him  ridicule  those  who  though  they  conceal 
in  darkness  the  necessary  functions  of  our  na¬ 
ture — for  instance  the  secretion  of  what  is  super- 


DIOGENES  OF  SINOPE 


293 

fluous — yet  in  the  centre  of  the  market-place 
and  of  our  cities  carry  on  practices  that  are  most 
brutal  and  by  no  means  akin  to  our  nature,  for 
instance  robbery  of  money,  false  accusations,  un¬ 
just  indictments,  and  the  pursuit  of  other  ras¬ 
cally  business  of  the  same  sort.  On  the  other  hand 
when  Diogenes  made  unseemly  noises  or  obeyed 
the  call  of  nature  or  did  anything  else  of  that 
sort  in  the  market-place,  as  they  say  he  did,  he 
did  so  because  he  was  trying  to  trample  on  the 
conceit  of  the  men  I  have  just  mentioned,  and 
to  teach  them  that  their  practices  were  far  more 
sordid  and  insupportable  than  his  own.  For  what 
he  did  was  in  accordance  with  the  nature  of  all 
of  us,  but  theirs  accorded  with  no  man’s  real  na¬ 
ture,  one  may  say,  but  were  all  due  to  moral  de¬ 
pravity.”14 

In  this  way  the  Cynic  interpreted  the  public 
command  of  Apollo  to  “know  thyself,”  and  mod¬ 
elled  his  life  on  the  private  command  to  “falsify 
the  currency.”  So  he  rendered  himself  the  hap¬ 
piest  of  all  men,  happier  than  Alexander  or  the 
Great  King;  and  so,  as  Julian  believed,  he  might 
be  upheld  as  the  supreme  exemplar  of  a  philoso¬ 
phy  capable  of  liberating  the  soul  from  the  do¬ 
minion  of  hypocrisy  and  of  withdrawing  man¬ 
kind  from  the  delusions  of  a  false  Saviour. 

Our  first  reflection  may  be  that  a  philosophy 

i4From  Mrs.  Wilmer  Cave  Wright’s  translation  in  the  Loeb 
Library. 


294  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

which  could  find  no  cleaner  exemplar  than  Di¬ 
ogenes  was  bankrupt  and  ready  to  be  swept  away. 
And  then  the  question  may  arise :  Why  was  this 
coarse  ruffian  rather  than  Socrates  chosen  by 
men  like  Epictetus  and  Julian  for  canonization? 
Philo  J udeaus,  in  his  Quod  Omnis  Probus,  makes 
much  of  the  story  of  Diogenes’  capture  and  sale, 
and  ranks  the  hero  of  that  adventure  among  his 
specimens  of  Stoic,  Jewish,  and  Hindu  sages. 
Even  so  thorough-goingaPlatonist  as  Plutarch 
succumbed  almost  to  the  tradition,  and  clear¬ 
headed  divines  like  Basil  and  Gregory  Nazian- 
zen  were  not  exempt  from  the  spell.15  The  cli¬ 
max  came  when,  under  Theodosius,  a  professed 
Cynic  of  the  Diogenic  stamp  was  almost  made 
bishop  of  Constantinople.  Diogenes  was  canon¬ 
ized  I  think,  because  in  him  more  ostentatiously 
than  in  any  other  philosopher,  even  more  com¬ 
pletely  than  in  Plato’s  master,  was  seen  the  ex¬ 
emplification  of  that  longing  for  security  and  lib¬ 
erty  which  had  attached  so  many  diverse  minds 
to  the  teaching  of  Socrates.  There  is  a  passage 
in  the  oration  of  the  good  Platonist,  Maximus 
of  Tyre,  on  the  Superiority  of  the  Cynic  Life 
that  brings  this  out  quite  clearly.  Which,  Maxi¬ 
mus  asks,  of  the  men  commonly  praised  by  the 

isBasil,  Quomodo  Possint  ex  Gentilibus  Libris  583  b  Migne; 
Gregory,  Ep.  xcviii. 


DIOGENES  OF  SINOPE 


295 

unthinking  multitude  is  really  free :  the  dema¬ 
gogue,  the  orator,  the  tyrant,  the  general,  the 
sea-captain?  Each  of  these  is  in  fact  the  slave  of 
other  men  or  of  his  own  passions  or  of  fortune. 
But  the  philosopher?  Yes,  but  what  kind  of  phi¬ 
losopher,  he  asks;  and  then  replies  to  his  own 
query : 

“I  am  ready  indeed  to  praise  Socrates;  but 
then  his  words  occur  to  me :  ‘I  obey  the  law  and 
go  voluntarily  to  gaol,  and  take  the  poison  vol¬ 
untarily.’ — O  Socrates,  do  you  not  see  what  you 
are  saying?  Do  you  then  yield  voluntarily,  or 
are  you  an  involuntary  victim  of  fortune? — 
‘Obeying  the  law.’ — What  law?  For  if  you  mean 
the  law  of  Zeus,  I  commend  the  law ;  but  if  you 
mean  Solon’s  law,  in  what  was  Solon  better  than 
Socrates?  Let  Plato  answer  to  me  for  philoso¬ 
phy,  whether  it  saved  him  from  perturbation 
when  Dio  fled,  when  Dionysius  threatened,  when 
he  was  compelled  to  sail  back  and  forth  over  the 
Sicilian  and  Ionian  seas.  .  .  .  Wherefore  I  say 
that  from  this  tyramry'  of  circumstance  the  only 
liberation  is  in  that  life  which  raised  Diogenes 
above  Lycurgus  and  Solon  and  Artaxerxes  and 
Alexander,  and  made  him  freer  than  Socrates 
himself.” 

So  it  was  that  by  his  renunciation  of  all  things, 
even  of  philosophy,  Diogenes  attained  to  per¬ 
fect  liberty  and  safety.  Socrates  still  clung  to  the 


296  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

conventional  law  of  the  city;  he  was  not  bold 
enough  to  falsify  the  currency.  Plato  might  es¬ 
tablish  a  dominion  over  the  minds  and  hearts  of 
men  by  the  power  of  his  intellect  and  the  majes¬ 
ty  of  his  imagination,  but  for  what  he  achieved 
there  was  the  need  of  culture  and  long  quiet 
years  and  many  gifts  of  chance.  What  would  the 
name  of  Plato  be  now  had  he  not  escaped  from 
the  court  of  Dionysius?  What  would  have  been 
his  peace  of  soul  had  he  remained  a  slave  in  the 
island  of  Aegina?  In  the  days  of  Julian  a  Plato 
might  have  held  the  place  in  philosophy  which 
the  great  bishops  and  enemies  of  the  Emperor, 
such  as  Athanasius  and  Gregory,  occupied  in  the 
Church.  True  servants  of  God  they  might  know 
themselves  to  be,  and  without  them  Christianity 
might  have  suffered  corruption  and  perished; 
but  something  still,  in  their  own  conscience,  was 
wanting,  something  still  required,  as  men  then 
thought,  for  their  complete  liberty  in  the  service 
of  God  and  for  their  emancipation  from  the 
world.  And  so  Gregory,  the  eloquent  theologian 
who  saved  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  was  never 
weary  of  extolling  the  retired  and  silent  and 
untroubled  lives  of  the  eremites;  and  Athana¬ 
sius,  the  master  statesman  of  the  Church,  who 
stood  unflinchingly  contra  mundum ,  wrote  his 


DIOGENES  OF  SINOPE 


297 

biography  of  that  fanatical  anchorite,  St.  An¬ 
thony,  as  of  one  who  had  reached  a  perfection 
of  Christian  character  denied  to  him  by  his  du¬ 
ties  in  the  world.  Anthony  and  Diogenes  were 
poles  apart  in  their  faith  and  in  certain  aspects 
of  ascetic  practice.  Instead  of  the  utter  shame¬ 
lessness  of  the  Cynic,  the  Christian  was  so  far 
subject  to  shame  that  he  would  never  bathe  or  in 
any  other  way  expose  his  naked  body  to  his  own 
eyes.  Yet  the  two  were  one  in  their  absolute  con- 
temptus  mundi  and  in  their  consequent  fearless¬ 
ness  and  indifference  to  the  conventions  of  so¬ 
ciety.  I  think  the  motive  that  impelled  Athana¬ 
sius  to  idealize  Anthony  was  not  unlike  that 
which  led  Julian,  the  philosopher  in  the  world, 
to  turn  from  Socrates  to  Diogenes  for  his  model 
of  philosophy  out  of  the  world.16 

And  Diogenes  alone,  or  let  us  say  the  legend¬ 
ary  Diogenes,  could  stand  with  the  martyrs  of 
the  Church,  as  he  stood  with  the  terrible  ascet¬ 
ics;  and  in  the  readiness  to  meet  martyrdom  joy¬ 
ously  men  had  come  to  see  the  final  test  of  faith, 
whether  in  religion  or  philosophy.  It  might  seem 
as  if  Socrates  would  have  served  such  a  purpose 
better  than  Diogenes,  for  he  had  in  fact  faced 

i^One  seems  to  see  a  direct  continuation  of  the  Cynic  tradition 
in  such  antics,  often  disgusting,  of  the  “fools  of  Christ”  as  Miss 
Underhill  records  in  her  Jacopone  da  Todi  14,  62,  63,  6'4  et  pas¬ 
sim. 


298  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

death  for  his  convictions  and  conquered  its  fears. 
But  if  Socrates  had  suffered  the  momentary  or¬ 
deal,  it  was  yet,  as  Maximus  asserted,  in  a  spirit 
of  submission  to  the  law;  whereas  the  whole  ex¬ 
istence  of  Diogenes  might  be  regarded  as  a  vol¬ 
untary  and  triumphant  martyrdom  in  protest 
against  any  compromise  with  social  conventions. 

And  there  was  another  cause  for  the  choice. 
The  death  of  Socrates,  as  had  been  his  life,  was 
too  calm  and  reasoned  to  satisfy  the  religious 
craving  of  that  age.  Julian  might  make  a  brave 
pretence  of  appealing  to  the  verdict  of  intelli¬ 
gence,  but  at  heart  he  was  a  child  of  his  own  gen¬ 
eration,  and  for  centuries  the  world  had  been 
growing  further  and  further  from  the  old  hope 
of  finding  salvation  in  the  clear  conception  of 
truth  and  of  what  we  know  and  do  not  know. 
The  change  shows  itself  in  the  eclectic  merging 
of  the  various,  even  contradictory,  sects  of  phi¬ 
losophy,  with  a  vein  of  N eopythagorean  obscur¬ 
antism  predominating  over  all.  It  is  notable  in 
the  waves  of  emotional  superstition  that  were 
supplanting  the  humanized  mythology  of  Olym¬ 
pus.  Most  conspicuously  it  is  seen  in  the  victory 
of  the  Christian  faith,  foretold  by  St.  Paul  in  the 
declaration  that  God  hath  “made  foolish  the 
wisdom  of  this  world,”  and  verified  in  the  exult- 


DIOGENES  OF  SINOPE 


299 

ant  cry  of  Tertullian,  Quia  ineptum  est!  quia 
impossibile  est!17  Over  and  over  again  we  find 
the  Fathers,  even  those  most  favourably  dis¬ 
posed  to  Plato  and  most  ready  to  admit  that 
God  had  not  left  Himself  without  a  witness 
among  the  gentiles — again  and  again  we  find 
them  reproaching  philosophy  with  its  inability 
to  convert  the  stubborn  hearts  of  men  and  to  save 
the  masses.  And  the  Fathers  were  right.  In 
whatever  terms  we  may  choose  to  state  the  fact, 
it  is  true,  as  Ambrose  said,  that  “it  hath  not 
pleased  God  to  give  His  people  salvation  in  dia¬ 
lectic.”18  It  is  simply  true  that,  in  setting  the  em¬ 
phasis  so  strongly  upon  knowledge  and  intelli¬ 
gence  and  in  leaving  so  little  room  for  the  will  and 
the  instinctive  emotions,  classical  philosophy, 
even  the  philosophy  of  Plato,  had  left  the  great 
heart  of  mankind  untouched.  Christianity,  by 
transferring  the  source  of  good  and  evil  to  the  will 
and  by  appealing  more  directly  to  the  emotions 
and  imagination,  had  in  a  measure  succeeded 
where  philosophy  had  failed — yet,  even  so,  how 
small  has  been  that  measure  of  success ! 

Looking  back  over  all  that  Christianity  has 
done  and  has  not  done,  we  may  ask  ourselves 

1  iDe  Came  Christi  5.  The  exclamation  of  Tertullian  has  been 
popularized,  but  scarcely  travestied,  in  the  maxim,  Credo  quia 
absurdum. 

is J)e  Fide  i,  5:  Non  in  dialectica  complacuit  Deo  salvum  facer e 
populum  suum. 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


300 

whether  God  meant  to  save  His  people  by  the 
emotions  alone  any  more  than  by  the  under¬ 
standing  alone;  we  may  broach  the  question 
whether  the  tragedy  of  Christianity  was  not  just 
there,  in  its  failure  to  achieve,  or  at  least  to  im¬ 
pose  on  the  world,  a  sound  combination  of  dia¬ 
lectic  and  emotionalism.  The  effort  was  made, 
no  doubt,  and  made  nobly,  but  it  was  never  car¬ 
ried  to  a  conclusion.  Clement  of  Alexandria  per¬ 
ceived  the  need  fairly  enough,  and  sought  to 
blend  Platonism  and  Christianity,  reason  and 
faith,  knowledge  and  feeling;  and  in  some  re¬ 
spects  his  endeavour  marks  the  most  dramatic 
moment  in  the  whole  period  we  are  studying. 
But  Clement’s  in  the  end  was  a  confused  brain, 
that  left  him  fumbling  in  shadows.  And  though 
after  a  fashion  his  work  was  carried  on  and  clari¬ 
fied  by  Athanasius  and  the  great  Cappadocians, 
the  stream  of  theological  thought  was  largely 
deflected  by  his  successor  Origen  from  the  direct 
course  of  Platonism  into  the  blind  channels  of  a 
Neoplatonic  mysticism.19  In  the  West  also  the¬ 
ology  received  a  strong  Neoplatonic  bent  from 
St.  Augustine ;  and  then,  soon  after  the  close  of 

I9lt  is  not  quite  precise,  of  course,  to  call  Origen  a  Neoplatonist 
if  we  confine  that  term  to  the  school  of  Plotinus.  But  Origen 
was  a  fellow  pupil  of  Ammonius  Saccas  and  carried  a  good  deal 
of  that  philosophy  into  his  Christian  theology. 


DIOGENES  OF  SINOPE 


301 

our  period,  there  flowed  over  E ast  and  W est  alike 
the  desiccating  winds  of  Aristotelian  scholastic¬ 
ism.  As  a  consequence  our  Latin  Christianity 
has  been  largely  a  mixture  of  unbridled  emotion, 
running  up  into  pure  mysticism,  with  scholastic 
metaphysics — a  mechanical,  unstable  mixture 
and  no  true  marriage  of  the  intellect  and  the 
will.  The  consummation  of  the  movement  in  the 
Occident  is  found  in  the  theology  of  Thomas 
Aquinas,  from  which  the  veiled  rationalism  of 
Calvin  and  Luther  was  a  revolt,  inevitable  no 
doubt,  but  in  the  end  more  destructive  of  reli¬ 
gion  than  the  disease  it  sought  to  cure.  I  cannot 
see  any  other  escape :  if  the  world  is  to  be  saved 
by  religion,  if  salvation  is  anything  more  than 
an  idle  word,  which,  like  Brutus,  we  have  pur¬ 
sued  in  the  vain  belief  that  it  was  a  reality,  our 
hope  would  seem  to  lie  in  a  return  to  the  path 
indicated  by  Clement.  There  we  must  push  on 
where  the  Greek  theologians  groped  for  a  while, 
grew  faint,  and  fell  away. 

But  this  is  a  digression.  The  main  stream  of 
philosophy  by  the  time  of  Julian  was  stagnating 
in  the  bogs  of  emotionalism ;  even  the  mysticism 
of  Plotinus  had  lost  its  metaphysical  backbone 
and  had  loaded  itself  with  the  jumbled  supersti¬ 
tions  of  an  lamblichus  and  other  baser  necro- 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


302 

mancers  who  possessed  the  ear  of  the  court.  In 
that  atmosphere  one  can  understand  how  a  Di¬ 
ogenes  should  have  been  selected  for  the  ideal¬ 
ized  personification  of  otherworldliness. 

To  be  sure  there  were  recalcitrant  voices.  At 
an  earlier  date,  yet  in  the  full  tide  of  the  legend, 
Lucian  had  satirized  the  philosopher  of  the  tub 
as  an  audacious  swaggerer,  preaching  his  Cynic¬ 
ism  thus  to  gods  and  men : 

“The  traits  that  you  should  possess  in  particu¬ 
lar  are  these :  you  should  be  impudent  and  bold, 
and  should  abuse  all  and  each,  both  kings  and 
commoners,  for  thus  they  will  admire  you  and 
think  you  manly.  Let  your  language  be  barbar¬ 
ous,  your  voice  discordant  and  just  like  the 
barking  of  a  dog:  let  your  expression  be  set,  and 
your  gait  consistent  with  your  expression.  In  a 
word,  let  everything  about  you  be  bestial  and 
savage.  Put  off  modesty,  decency,  and  modera¬ 
tion,  and  wipe  away  blushes  from  your  face 
completely.  Frequent  the  most  crowded  places, 
and  in  those  very  places  desire  to  be  solitary  and 
uncommunicative,  greeting  nor  friend  nor  stran¬ 
ger;  for  to  do  so  is  abdication  of  the  empire.  Do 
boldly  in  full  view  of  all  what  another  would 
not  do  in  secret ;  choose  the  most  ridiculous  ways 
of  satisfying  your  lust;  and  at  the  last,  if  you 
like,  eat  a  raw  devilfish  or  squid,  and  die.  That 
is  the  bliss  we  vouchsafe  you.”20 

20 Philosophies  for  Sale,  translated  by  A.  M.  Harmon. 


DIOGENES  OF  SINOPE 


303 

The  satire  is  bitter  enough,  and  closer  to  the 
original,  one  may  well  believe,  than  the  tradition 
that  was  concealing  the  cloak  of  the  sturdy  old 
beggar  under  the  drapery  of  a  “fair  soul.”  But 
Lucian  was  a  mocker  by  profession  who  spared 
nobody,  and  it  remained  for  a  Christian  preach¬ 
er  to  say  the  last  word  on  the  subject.  St.  John 
Chrysostom  certainly  had  Diogenes  in  mind, 
and  so  far  was  just,  when  he  pronounced  his 
criticism  of  the  long  search  of  our  Hellenistic 
philosophers  for  the  security  and  liberty  of  re¬ 
ligion  within  the  closed  circle  of  naturalism: 
“Such  was  the  philosophic  life  of  the  Greeks, 
but  it  was  idle.  They  could  make  a  show  of  aus¬ 
terity,  but  to  no  purpose,  for  they  had  no  salu¬ 
tary  end  to  which  they  looked;  their  eyes  were 
set  on  vanity  ( kenodoocia )  and  on  honour  from 
men.”21 

21  In  Eph.  91  a. — Theodoret,  De  Virtute  Activa,  Col.  1132  Migne, 
has  the  same  idea:  Oe  yap  ’  Avtlg devei  Kal  AioyheL  nal  Kpar^n  irapa- 
tt \rjaius  Kevrjs  5o^r]s,  aXX’  avrov  ye  eiveita  rod  /caXoO  Spuiaiv  &  SpCocLv. 


CHAPTER  VII 


SCEPTICISM 

I 

After  his  haphazard  manner  Diogenes  Laer¬ 
tius,  in  his  life  of  Pyrrho,  mentions  various  doubt¬ 
ers  who  anticipated  the  founder  of  the  school  of 
Scepticism,  such  as  Homer,  and  Euripides,  and 
Zeno  the  Eleatic,  and  Democritus,  and  Plato, 
but  does  not  name  Socrates.  Yet  if  the  Apology 
reproduces,  as  it  surely  does,  the  genuine  opin¬ 
ions  of  the  master,  one  can  scarcely  avoid  includ¬ 
ing  the  sceptics  in  the  great  and  quarrelsome 
family  of  Socratics.  Indeed,  all  that  Pyrrho  was 
to  teach,  with  something  more,  is  really  implicit 
in  the  famous  utterance  on  death:  “Strange  it 
would  be  if  now,  when  the  god,  as  I  firmly  be¬ 
lieve  and  am  convinced,  bids  me  stand  forth  as 
one  devoted  to  wisdom,  a  questioner  of  myself 
and  all  the  world,  I  were  to  desert  my  post 
through  fear  of  death  or  any  other  thing.  .  .  . 
For  the  fear  of  death,  my  friends,  is  only  an- 


3°  4 


SCEPTICISM 


305 

other  form  of  appearing  wise  when  we  are  fool¬ 
ish  and  of  seeming  to  know  what  we  know  not. 
No  mortal  knoweth  of  death  whether  it  be  not 
the  greatest  of  all  good  things  to  man,  yet  do 
men  fear  it  as  knowing  it  to  be  the  greatest  of 
evils.  And  is  not  this  that  most  culpable  ignor¬ 
ance  which  pretends  to  know  what  it  knows 
not?”  The  Epicurean  sought  for  the  admired 
security  and  liberty  of  Socrates  in  the  path  of 
pleasure ;  the  Stoic  looked  for  peace  rather  in  the 
contempt  of  pleasure  and  in  the  strength  of  en¬ 
durance;  Pyrrho,  whether  consciously  or  not, 
laid  hold  of  the  Socratic  doubt  for  the  same  end. 
For  leave  out  the  spiritual  affirmation  of  Soc¬ 
rates,  his  belief  in  the  gods  and  in  the  eternal 
reality  of  justice,  as  the  Epicurean  and,  less 
frankly,  the  'Stoic  also  left  it  out ;  translate  his 
avowed  ignorance  in  the  face  of  alternative  views 
into  suspension  of  judgment  ( epoche )  ;  for 
“questioning”  ( eocetazein )  substitute  “search¬ 
ing”  ( skeptesthai )  ;  for  the  resulting  fearless¬ 
ness  use  the  term  “tranquillity”  ( ataraooia ) ,  and 
the  broad  foundation  of  Pyrrhonism  is  laid,  while 
only  the  superstructure  remains  to  be  raised.1 

That  would  seem  to  be  clear  enough,  and,  con¬ 
sidering  the  influence  of  Socrates  and  the  affini- 


iSee  Appendix  B. 


306  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

ties  between  the  school  of  Pyrrho  and  the  later 
Academy,  I  have  no  doubt  the  affiliation  is  his¬ 
torical  as  well  as  logical.2  More  immediately,  how¬ 
ever,  Pyrrho  would  seem  to  have  come  under  the 
influence  of  the  Democritean  school,  perhaps 
through  association  with  Anaxarchus,  of  that 
sect,  in  whose  company  he  followed  Alexander 
on  the  march  into  India.  On  his  return  from  this 
expedition  Pyrrho  settled  at  Elis,  his  native 
town,  where,  with  his  sister,  he  lived  in  dignified 
simplicity,  dying  in  extreme  old  age  about  the 
year  270. 

How  far  Pyrrho  assumed  the  role  of  teacher 
it  is  not  easy  to  say.  Apparently  he  wrote  noth¬ 
ing  except  perhaps  a  poem  addressed  to  Alex¬ 
ander,  and  what  wisdom  he  had  to  impart  was 
conveyed  chiefly  in  pithy  phrases  and  catch¬ 
words,  such  as  “No  more”  (soil,  this  than  that) , 
“I  decide  nothing,”  “Balance”  (soil,  of  evidence 
and  views),  “Incomprehensibility,”  “Suspen¬ 
sion”  (of  judgment) ,  “Silence”  ( aphasia ,  “re¬ 
fusal  to  speak”),  “Tranquillity.”  According  to 
his  successor,  Timon  of  Phlius,  his  philosophy 
was  a  search  for  happiness,  summed  up  in  three 

2According  to  Cicero  the  sceptics  regarded  themselves  as  fol¬ 
lowers  of  Socrates:  Fuerunt  etiam  alia  genera  philosophorum 
qui  se  omnes  fere  Socraticos  esse  dicebant,  .  .  .  Pyrrhoneorum 
( De  Or  at.  iii,  17). 


SCEPTICISM 


307 

questions:  (1)  What  is  the  nature  of  things? 
( 2 )  What  should  be  our  attitude  to  them  ?  ( 3 ) 
What  will  be  the  result  to  us  of  such  an  atti¬ 
tude?  To  the  first  of  these  questions  the  Pyr- 
rhonist  wrill  reply  that  we  have  no  means  of  de¬ 
termining  whether  or  not  our  sensations  and 
opinions  correspond  with  the  objects  them¬ 
selves,  so  that  in  their  ultimate  nature  things  are 
for  us  indistinguishable  and  incommensurable, 
and  there  is  no  court  of  appeal  for  settling  our 
differences  about  them.  As  Democritus  said,  it 
is  customary  to  call  one  sensation  hot  and  an¬ 
other  cold,  but  beyond  that  we  know  nothing, 
and  truth  lies  buried.  Hence  the  answer  to  the 
second  question:  we  can  put  no  faith  in  our  opin¬ 
ions,  and  should  hold  our  judgment  in  suspense, 
saying  simply  in  regard  to  each  matter  that  it  is 
or  is  not,  or  both  is  and  is  not,  or  neither  is  nor  is 
not.3  And,  thirdly,  the  result  of  this  refusal  to 
decide  will  be  that  unsolicitous  state  of  mind 
which  may  be  called  tranquillity,  ataraxy,  and 
which,  as  Timon  added,  follows  upon  suspense 
of  judgment  as  its  shadow.4 

3These  are  precisely  the  replies  Buddha  used  to  make  to  those 
who  inquired  about  the  entity  underlying  our  sensations  and  to 
metaphysical  questions  generally. 

4The  questions  are  quoted  from  Aristocles,  a  late  Peripatetic, 
by  Eusebius  ( Praep .  Ev.  XIV,  xviii,  2).  The  answers,  as  I  give 
them,  are  from  Aristocles  with  some  additions  from  Diogenes 


308  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

How  Pyrrho  carried  his  conclusions  into  the 
test  of  life  we  may  illustrate  by  his  use  of  a  pig, 
a  philosopher,  and  a  dog.  For  the  first,  being 
once  at  sea  and  caught  in  a  storm,  he  rebuked 
the  terror  of  the  passengers  by  pointing  to  a 
little  pig  that  kept  on  feeding  through  all  the 
commotion,  and  declared  that  such  ought  to  be 
the  tranquillity  of  the  wise  man.5  For  the  phi¬ 
losopher,  we  are  told  that  once  when  he  saw 
Anaxarchus  fallen  into  a  pond,  he  passed  by 
without  offering  assistance — a  display  of  phi¬ 
losophic  calm  of  which  the  victim  is  said  to  have 
approved.  But  it  was  not  always  thus.  When 
reproached  for  showing  fear  at  the  attack  of  a 
dog,  he  excused  himself  even  more  philosophic¬ 
ally  by  observing  that  it  is  hard  to  put  off  the 
whole  man. 

Pyrrho  at  best,  though  he  imposed  his  name 
on  one  of  the  greatest  of  all  schools  of  thought, 
remains  a  shadowy  figure,  and  it  is  impossible 
to  separate  with  precision  his  own  views  from 


Laertius, — Brochard  ( Les  sceptiques  grecs  71  ff.)  makes  a <5ia0o- 
pla,  resignation  or  complete  renunciation,  rather  than  eiroxn,  in¬ 
tellectual  doubt,  the  keynote  of  Pyrrho’s  teaching,  and  believes 
that  he  was  strongly  influenced  in  this  by  observation  of  the 
Hindu  gymnosophists. 

eYonge  has  a  delicious  version  of  this  story  in  the  Bohn  transla¬ 
tion  of  Diogenes  Laertius:  “He  kept  a  calm  countenance,  and 
comforted  their  minds,  exhibiting  himself  on  deck  eating  a  pig.” 
I  have  fallen  upon  a  good  many  strange  blunders  in  the  course 
of  my  reading,  but  never  on  a  more  diverting  one  than  this. 


SCEPTICISM 


309 

those  of  his  followers.  But  the  tradition  is  prob¬ 
ably  in  the  main  true,  and  if  the  three  questions 
and  their  answers,  as  formulated  by  Timon,  give 
the  substance  of  his  philosophy  of  life,  I  think 
we  must  admit  that  he  laid  down  all  that  is  es¬ 
sential  to  scepticism,  and  that  later  scholars, 
whether  ancient  or  modern,  have  done  no  more 
than  develop  his  axioms.  The  great  philoso¬ 
phies,  however  rich  their  contents  may  be,  rest 
finally  on  the  simplest  common-places  of  exper¬ 
ience;  and  it  is  the  honour  of  Pyrrho  that  he 
grasped  the  conscious  sense  of  ignorance  inher¬ 
ent  in  the  minds  of  all  men,  penetrated  to  its 
source,  and  applied  it  relentlessly  wdiere  other 
men  faltered  or  drew  back.  Our  criticism  of  the 
value  and  significance  of  scepticism  we  shall  de¬ 
fer  until  we  take  up  the  systematic  and  historic 
work  of  Sextus  Empiricus ;  but  we  shall  not  for¬ 
get  that  the  title  of  originator  and  master  of  the 
sect  belongs  to  the  obscure  doubter  of  Elis. 

From  Pyrrho  the  defence  of  scepticism  passed 
to  the  hands  of  Timon,  not  the  misanthrope  of 
that  name,  but  one  who  might  be  called  the  mi- 
sophilosophe.  He  was  a  wine-bibber;  and  he  also 
wrote  poetry,  tragedies  and  comedies — which 
business,  the  historian  naively  observes,  is  scarce¬ 
ly  fit  for  a  philosopher,  as  if  wine-bibbing  were 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


310 

quite  in  the  line  of  his  profession.  The  dramas, 
fortunately  for  us  perhaps,  are  all  lost ;  but  we 
have  a  few  fragments  from  his  three  books  of 
Silli,  or  Lampoons,  which  evidently  were  bitter 
and  impudent  enough  to  make  a  sensation.  He 
seems  to  have  possessed  a  full  command  of 
the  terminology  of  abuse,  compounded  of  far¬ 
fetched  and  often  archaic  words,  such  as  had  de¬ 
lighted  the  audience  of  Aristophanes,  and  these 
he  poured  out  on  the  dogmatic  philosophers,  liv¬ 
ing  and  dead,  with  magnificent  impartiality.  In 
mock-Homeric  language  he  describes  the  con¬ 
tentious  Muse  of  philosophy  as  a  pestilence  walk¬ 
ing  among  men : 

“Waster  of  spirit  and  an  empty  sound ! 

Wherever  discords  of  the  brain  abound, 

There  the  dark  sister  of  debate  is  found. 

“Who  sent  this  strife  of  tongues  that  twist  and  lie? 
Silence  is  mobbed  by  mouthing  ribaldry ; 

The  talking-sickness  comes,  and  many  die.” 

A  few  chosen  prophets  of  doubt  are  spared 
the  lash,  and  notably,  of  course,  Pyrrho,  the 
eponymous  hero  of  the  school,  who  alone  had 
learned  the  secret  of  a  quiet  and  easy  life,  devoid 
of  controversy  and  pretension,  and  heedless  of 
the  wiles  of  a  deceitful  wisdom.  Only  he,  Timon 


SCEPTICISM 


3ii 

says,  as  Lucretius  afterwards  was  to  say  of  Epi¬ 
curus,  had  discovered  how  to  enjoy  upon  earth 
the  blissful  calm  of  the  gods. 


II 

Put  if  Timon  could  sing  the  praises  of  peace, 
he  certainly  did  not  walk  in  the  way  thereof.  It 
was  in  his  days  that  Arcesilas  changed  the  school 
of  Plato  into  the  so-called  Middle  Academy, 
which  pretended  to  be  more  logically  sceptical 
than  those  who  had  usurped  the  name  of  sceptics  ;6 
and  it  was  particularly  against  Arcesilas,  as  his 
nearest  rival  in  the  field,  that  Timon’ s  rage  was 
directed,  in  accordance  with  the  verse  of  Hesiod, 
often  quoted  by  the  sectarians  from  Plato  down, 
to  the  effect  that  “potter  is  the  natural  enemy 
of  potter,  and  poet  of  poet,  and  beggar  of  beg¬ 
gar.”  “What  are  you  doing  here  where  we  free¬ 
men  are?”  was  Timon’s  genial  remark  to  Arces¬ 
ilas,  when  they  met  one  day  in  a  public  place ; 
and  at  another  time,  to  the  query  why  he  had 
come  from  Thebes,  his  answer  was,  “To  be 
where  I  can  laugh  at  you  face  to  face.”  It  was  a 

eThough  Arcesilas  and  Carneades  called  themselves  Academics, 
their  purpose  would  seem  to  have  been  to  reject  what  they  re¬ 
garded  as  the  dogmatism  of  Plato  for  the  more  completely  scep¬ 
tical  attitude  of  Socrates.  That  at  least  is  the  view  of  Cicero, 
Acad.  Post,  i,  16. 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


312 

merry  battle,  no  doubt,  replete  with  joy  for  the 
witty  flaneurs  of  Athens,  and  so  long  as  Timon 
lived  Zeus  held  the  scales  equal;  but  very  soon 
the  bastard  sons  of  Plato  triumphed  over  the 
children  of  Pyrrho,  as  later  they  brought  con¬ 
fusion  among  the  children  of  Zeno,  and  for  a 
hundred  years  and  more  the  Academy  was  the 
acknowledged  home  of  scepticism.  Until  the  rise 
of  Aenesidemus,  if  there  were  any  avowed  Pyr- 
rhonists,  they  are  the  shadows  of  a  name  and 
nothing  more. 

Of  the  actual  teaching  of  Arcesilas  we  know 
very  little,  and  still  less  of  his  successor  Lacy- 
des,  save  the  foolish  but  not  insignificant  story 
which  I  have  related  in  the  chapter  on  the  early 
Stoics.  The  Middle  Academy  attained  its  full 
growth  under  Carneades,  who  presided  over  the 
school  until  his  death  in  129  b.c.,  and  of  whom, 
thanks  mainly  to  Cicero,  we  have  more  definite 
information.  Carneades  was  a  subtle  dialecti¬ 
cian  and  pugnacious  fighter ;  philosophy  for  him 
consisted  not  so  much  in  what  could  be  deduced 
from  the  doctrines  of  his  nominal  and  remote 
master,  as  in  what  could  be  said  against  his  very 
near  enemies  of  the  Porch.  Now  the  Stoics, 
craving  some  final  stay  for  the  mind  and  con¬ 
science,  had  developed  a  pure  rationalism  based 


SCEPTICISM 


3*3 

on  the  assumption  that  certain  knowledge  of  the 
truth  can  be  obtained  from  the  senses.  Starting 
then  from  the  sensations  which  convey  know¬ 
ledge  in  the  form  of  a  mechanical  impression  on 
the  mind,  they  created  a  theory  of  the  world  as 
a  vast  fatalistic  machine.  But  at  the  same  time, 
with  a  fine  inconsistency,  their  rationalism,  for¬ 
getting  its  origin  in  the  mechanical  laws  of  gross 
matter,  produced  its  own  theory  of  the  world  as 
a  process  of  evolution  absolutely  determined  by 
a  divine  indwelling  reason.  In  either  case  the 
logical  end,  whether  mechanistic  or  pantheistic, 
was  to  shut  up  the  human  spirit  in  a  prison 
house  of  Destiny,  without  door  of  exit  or  win¬ 
dow  of  outlook.  The  only  escape  from  this  out¬ 
rageous  restraint  was  to  attack  the  principles  of 
sensationalism  and  rationalism  as  adequate  in¬ 
struments  of  the  truth,  or  as  capable  of  giving 
us  any  knowledge  of  things  as  they  are  in  them¬ 
selves;  and  this  attack  made  the  joy  of  Carne- 
ades’  life.  With  the  sensational  hypothesis  of  the 
Stoics,  based  on  a  self-evident  distinction  be¬ 
tween  true  and  false  impressions,  he  made  short 
shrift;  it  was,  indeed,  as  we  have  seen  in  an  ear¬ 
lier  chapter,  vulnerable  from  every  side.  Mani¬ 
festly  the  criterion  by  which  we  distinguish  be¬ 
tween  truth  and  falsehood,  if  it  exist  at  all,  must 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


3H 

be  sought  outside  of  the  sensations  themselves. 
But  no  such  criterion  can  be  found  in  reason. 
This  fact  Carneades  demonstrated  by  bringing 
out  certain  fallacies  inherent  in  the  syllogism, 
and,  more  generally,  by  showing  that  every  ra¬ 
tional  proof  depends  on  premises  which  them¬ 
selves  need  to  be  proved,  and  so  on  ad  infinitum. 

The  result  was  a  complete  scepticism;  nei¬ 
ther  sensation  nor  reason  can  carry  us  beyond 
the  circle  of  appearances.  And  this  destructive 
analysis  of  the  instruments  of  knowledge  Car¬ 
neades  confirmed  by  exhibiting  the  contradic¬ 
tions  involved  in  the  conclusions  actually  reached 
by  the  dogmatists.  God  an  infinite  abstraction 
and  also  a  reasonable,  personal  being ;  right  and 
justice  a  remorseless  law  of  fatality  and  also  a 
matter  of  human  responsibility;  a  sequence  of 
events  eternally  predestined  and  also  a  liberty 
of  the  individual  will, — all  the  terrible  and  in¬ 
soluble  antinomies  that  later  were  to  enter  in¬ 
to  the  Stoic  theology  of  St.  Augustine,  were 
dragged  out  by  Carneades  and  used  as  batter¬ 
ing  rams  to  beat  down  the  stronghold  of  the 
Porch. 

Meanwhile,  brought  to  bay  in  turn  with  the 
assertion  that  his  scepticism  left  no  motive  for 
action  and  made  life  impossible,  Carneades  de- 


SCEPTICISM 


315 

fended  himself  with  the  theory  of  probability. 
It  is  demonstrable,  he  says,  that  reason  affords 
no  criterion  of  absolute  truth,  but  we  can  attain 
to  varying  degrees  of  probability  in  our  own 
conviction  of  truth,  and  this  conviction,  if  exam¬ 
ined  and  tested,  may  provide  a  security  suffi¬ 
cient  at  least  for  practical  ends,  if  not  for  the 
complete  satisfaction  of  the  inquisitive  intellect. 

The  persuasive,  the  probable,  as  a  pragmatic 
sanction  for  action,  whether  introduced  by  Ar- 
cesilas  and  only  developed  by  Carneades,  or  ac¬ 
tually  invented  by  Carneades,  is  the  great  addi¬ 
tion  to  philosophy  of  the  Middle  Academy.  But 
just  how  far  the  canon  was  carried  by  Carne¬ 
ades  as  a  nominal  follower  of  Plato  is  a  delicate 
question  to  which  no  positive  answer  can  be 
given.  For  it  will  be  seen  that  there  is  a  legiti¬ 
mate  extension  of  the  principle — legitimate, 
that  is,  for  the  Academician — and  an  illegiti¬ 
mate  extension.  Legitimately,  it  might  be  ap¬ 
plied  to  an  extension  of  our  convictions  in  the 
Ideal  realm,  to  justify  there  a  practical  com¬ 
pliance  with  the  great  dogmas  of  theology  and 
mythology;  but  that  was  a  door  which,  appar¬ 
ently,  Carneades  did  not  open,  or  opened  so  nar¬ 
rowly,  as  to  obtain  only  a  glimpse  of  the  path 
leading  to  religious  liberty.  Illegitimately,  the 
canon  might  be  employed  not  as  a  fortification 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


316 

within,  blit  as  an  escape  from,  scepticism.  Ac¬ 
cording  to  a  rather  doubtful  statement  of  Sex¬ 
tus  the  scepticism  of  Arcesilas  was  only  a  blind 
by  which  he  tested  the  suitability  of  his  pupils  to 

receive  the  esoteric  doctrine  of  Ideas;  so  that 

/ 

the  Stoic  Aristo  could  satirize  him  as  having 
“ Plato  before,  Pyrrho  behind,  and  Diodorus  for 
middle.’57  If  this  means  that  Arcesilas  used  the 
canon  of  probability  to  establish  the  doctrine  of 
Ideas,  it  can  only  be  said  that  the  procedure,  so 
far  as  it  prevailed,  removed  the  Middle  Acad¬ 
emy  from  the  sceptical  fold,  without  bringing 
it  any  whit  closer  to  a  genuine  Platonism.  It  was 
not,  as  we  shall  see  later,  by  way  of  the  probable 
that  the  Platonist  reaches  his  fundamental  phi¬ 
losophy  of  Ideas.  And,  whatever  may  be  said 
of  Arcesilas,  there  is  no  evidence  that  Carne- 
ades  took  this  line.  On  the  whole,  then,  the  safest 
conclusion  will  be  that  Carneades  himself  was 
in  essential  matters  a  firm  sceptic  of  the  Pyr- 
rhonic  type,  and  limited  the  scope  of  probabil¬ 
ity  to  justifying  his  participation  in  the  prac¬ 
tical  business  of  life,  without  using  it  as  a  cri¬ 
terion  of  objective  truth.8 

^Hypotyposes  I,  234.  Diodorus  was  a  follower  of  the  Megarian 
school. 

8Augustine  Con.  Acad,  iii,  18:  Quamquam  et  Metrodorus  [a  pu¬ 
pil  of  Carneades]  id  antea  \i.e.,  before  Antiochus]  facere  tenta- 
verat,  qui  'primus  dicitur  esse  confessus,  non  decreto  placuisse 
Academicis,  nihil  posse  comprehendi,  sed  necessario  contra  Sto- 
icos  hmusmodi  eos  arma  sumsisse. 


SCEPTICISM 


3l7 


III 

After  the  death  of  Carneades  something  hap¬ 
pened  like  the  peace  of  exhaustion  that  falls  up¬ 
on  two  armies  which  fight  all  day  in  doubtful 
battle  and  at  night  slink  away,  each  claiming 
the  victory.  The  Academics  surrendered  the 
field,  but  consoled  themselves  by  declaring  that 
they  had  never  really  cared  to  occupy  it ;  scep¬ 
ticism  fell  into  abeyance,  until,  some  time  about 
the  beginning  of  our  era,  a  certain  Aenesidemus 
undertook  to  revive  and  strengthen  the  old  ar¬ 
guments  of  doubt  as  they  were  originally  pro¬ 
posed  by  Pyrrho.  The  works  of  Aenesidemus, 
the  first  systematic  writer  of  the  school  of  Scep¬ 
ticism  properly  so  called,  are  lost,  but  so  far  as 
we  can  infer  from  the  records  his  great  achieve¬ 
ment  was  the  formulation  of  the  arguments  ol 
doubt  in  ten  tropes  ( tropos ,  “method”  or  “pro¬ 
cedure”)  leading  to  suspension  of  judgment, 
and  in  another  set  of  eight  tropes  against  the 
principle  of  causality.  For  the  tropes  of  suspen¬ 
sion  it  will  be  sufficient  to  say  that  they  were 
subsumed  by  Sextus  under  three  heads.  The  first 
four  have  to  do  with  the  differences  in  the  active 
agent  in  any  judgment;  as  that,  for  instance, 
no  two  men  are  alike  in  their  constitution  and 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


318 

faculties,  and  consequently  there  is  no  standard 
by  which  we  can  bring  their  judgments  into 
agreement.  The  seventh  and  tenth  have  to  do 
with  the  object  judged;  as  that,  for  instance, 
the  same  object  under  different  conditions  pre¬ 
sents  different  qualities  (colours,  etc.) , and  con¬ 
sequently  we  have  no  means  of  telling  which  of 
these  qualities  is  indicative  of  ultimate  reality. 
The  fifth,  sixth,  eighth,  and  ninth  combine  the 
difficulties  presented  by  the  judge  and  the  ob¬ 
ject  judged.  Further,  Sextus  shows  that  these 
three  groups  may  all  be  subsumed  under  the 
eighth  trope,  which  reduces  all  our  judgments 
to  relativity  ( to  pros  ti )  .9  Another  division  would 
group  the  first  nine  tropes  together  as  showing 
the  impossibility  of  a  “comprehensive  impres¬ 
sion,”  while  the  tenth  exhibits  the  contradiction 
of  opinions  that  necessarily  results  from  this 
impossibility.  The  argument  in  the  eight  tropes 
destructive  of  the  principle  of  causality  we  may 
pass  over  for  the  moment. 

The  next  sceptic  to  be  noted  is  Agrippa,  of 
whom  we  know  virtually  nothing  save  that  he 
reduced  the  ten  tropes  of  suspension  to  five, 
while  at  the  same  time  extending  their  scope  to 
include  the  processes  of  reason.  The  first  of 


9The  ten  tropes  are  given  in  a  different  order  by  other  authori¬ 
ties. 


SCEPTICISM 


3J9 

Agrippa’s  five  is  based  upon  contradiction,  and 
embraces  all  the  ten  of  Aenesidemus  except  his 
eighth.  The  second  is  the  famous  regressus  ad 
infinitum,  based  on  the  fact  that  every  proof  re¬ 
quires  its  hypothesis  to  be  proved,  and  so  on 
without  end.  The  third  corresponds  with  the 
eighth  of  Aenesidemus,  and  argues  the  relativ¬ 
ity  of  all  judgments.  The  fourth  is  virtually  a 
repetition,  or  confirmation,  of  the  second,  and 
denies  the  right  to  assume  any  unproved  hy¬ 
pothesis  as  the  ground  of  argument.  The  fifth, 
as  complementary  to  the  second  and  fourth,  ex¬ 
pounds  the  “vicious  circle”  which  arises  when  the 
hypothesis  used  to  prove  a  thesis  requires  itself 
to  be  proved  by  the  assumption  of  that  thesis. 

Later  some  unknown  systematizer  com¬ 
pressed  the  five  tropes  of  Agrippa  into  two  by 
combining  the  first  and  third  together  in  one  and 
the  second,  fourth,  and  fifth  together  in  a  sec¬ 
ond  and  complementary  trope.  The  final  form 
of  the  tropes,  then,  maybe  stated  thus:  anything 
known  must  be  either  ( 1 )  self-evident,  or  ( 2 ) 
proved  from  something  else ;  but  ( 1 )  nothing  is 
self-evident,  as  is  shown  by  the  disagreement  of 
philosophers  over  all  questions  of  sensation  and 
conception,  and  (2)  nothing  can  be  proved  from 
something  else,  since  any  such  attempt  involves 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


320 

either  the  regressus  ad  infinitum  or  the  vicious 
circle.  In  the  end  the  analysis  of  the  sceptical  ar¬ 
guments  started  by  Aenesidemus  thus  resolves 
itself  into  a  simplified  and  clarified  statement  of 
the  position  taken  by  Pyrrho  at  the  beginning : 
we  cannot  be  sure  of  our  comprehension  of  things 
(katalepsis) ,  since  men  differ  in  their  opinions 
about  them  and  there  is  no  tribunal  to  which  we 
can  appeal  for  decision  ( isostheneia )  ;  hence  we 
have  no  source  of  knowledge. 


IV 

With  the  anonymous  formulator  of  the  two 
tropes  the  development  of  scepticism  reaches 
its  climax.  For  our  information  in  regard  to  the 
whole  school,  apart  from  Cicero,  who  writes  as 
an  Academic  and  confusedly  at  that,  we  are 
mainly  dependent  on  Sextus  Empiricus,  the 
most  important  of  whose  works  fortunately  are 
preserved.  Of  the  man  himself  we  know  virtu¬ 
ally  nothing.  The  time  of  his  life  is  doubtful, 
falling  somewhere  within  the  limits  of  a.d.  150 
and  280.  The  place  where  he  taught,  whether 
Athens  or  Rome  or  Alexandria,  is  disputable; 
and,  curiously  enough,  though  his  cognomen 
would  indicate  that  he  was  one  of  the  Empirics 


SCEPTICISM 


32  i 

of  medicine,  his  own  words  imply  rather  that  he 
belonged  to  the  hostile  camp  of  the  Methodics.10 
His  extant  works  are  the  Hypoty poses,  or  Out¬ 
lines  of  Scepticism ,  in  three  books,  and  the  A  d- 
versus  Mathematicos ,  in  eleven  books,  in  which 
the  condensed  arguments  of  the  Hypoty  poses 
are  extended  and  applied  to  the  various  schools 
of  philosophy  and  science.  In  neither  of  these 
treatises  does  the  author  make  any  pretension 
to  add  anything  of  his  own  to  the  method  de¬ 
veloped  by  his  predecessors ;  but  he  has  gather¬ 
ed  together  and  arranged  in  masterly  fashion 
the  whole  sceptical  thought  of  the  centuries.  De¬ 
spite  an  occasional  lapse  into  quibbling  and  an 
occasional  confusion  of  ideas,  he  lias  presented 
once  for  all  and  in  its  final  form  the  matter  of 
what  is  certainly  one  of  the  most  persistent  and 
most  important  attitudes  of  the  human  mind 
towards  the  world  in  which  we  live.  On  the  whole 
I  am  almost  inclined  to  reckon  the  works  of  Sex¬ 
tus,  after  the  Dialogues  of  Plato  and  the  New 
Testament,  the  most  significant  document  in  our 
possession  for  the  Greek  Tradition  as  we  are 
dealing  with  it  in  these  volumes. 

Before  discussing  the  value  and  limitations  of 
scepticism  as  the  subject  is  presented  by  Sex- 


10 Ilypotyposes  I,  210. 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


322 

tus,  it  may  be  well  to  summarize  the  difference 
between  the  Pyrrhonic  school  to  which  he  pro¬ 
fessed  allegiance  and  the  schools  to  which  he 
was  more  or  less  antagonistic.  The  conflict,  as 
we  have  seen,  verges  upon  two  terms,  katalepsis 
and  isostheneia ,  which  express  the  gist  of  the 
sceptical  contention  as  finally  summed  up  in  the 
two  tropes. 

Katalepsis  means  seizing,  comprehension,  ap¬ 
prehension,  hence  knowledge  which  we  know  to 
be  knowledge.  So  far  the  meaningis  clear  enough. 
But  there  is  an  ambiguity  in  the  word,  which 
seems  not  to  have  been  firmly  grasped  by  the 
disputants,  and  which  has  introduced  a  good 
deal  of  confusion  into  their  discussion  of  its  val¬ 
idity.  On  the  one  hand  katalepsis  is  concerned 
merely  with  the  perception  of  objects  as  they 
present  themselves  to  our  senses.  For  instance, 
a  stick,  half  in  the  water  and  half  out,  appears 
to  be  bent.  Or,  again,  a  coil  of  rope  seen  in  the 
dark  appears  to  be  a  snake.11  The  first  question 
would  be  whether  we  have  any  means  of  rectify- 

nThese  two  illustrations,  the  bent  stick  and  the  coiled  rope, 
were  among  the  favourite  tests  by  which  the  Hindus  demon¬ 
strated  the  illusory  nature,  or  mayd,  of  the  phenomenal  world. 
The  first  of  them  was  in  common  use  among  the  Greeks  at  an 
early  period  (cf.  Plato,  Republic  602  c);  but  the  second  illus¬ 
tration,  the  coiled  rope,  is  so  peculiarly  indigenous  to  India  as 
to  lend  support  to  Brochard’s  theory  of  Hindu  influence  upon 
Pyrrho. 


SCEPTICISM 


323 

ing  such  impressions  of  sight  by  the  test  of  other 
faculties  so  as  to  reach  an  assured  judgment  of 
this  stick  or  this  rope  as  an  object  of  the  phe¬ 
nomenal  world.  On  the  other  hand,  the  question 
of  katalepsis  goes  much  deeper,  and  is  concerned 
not  with  rectifying  our  judgment  of  appear¬ 
ances,  but  with  our  apprehension  of  what  lies 
behind  appearances.  We  may  come  to  a  conclu¬ 
sion  as  to  the  proper  epithet  to  be  applied  to  the 
stick  or  the  coil  of  rope  as  phenomena,  but  have 
we  any  means  of  comprehending  what  this  stick 
or  this  rope  is  in  itself  apart  from  what  it  ap¬ 
pears  to  be?  Can  we  in  any  way  apprehend  what, 
if  anything,  is  the  cause  of  our  sensation  of  a 
certain  form  and  colour  and  hardness?  Can  we, 
so  to  speak,  go  behind  the  returns  ? 

Isostheneia  means  equal  weight  of  evidence, 
or  balance  of  divergent  views,  and  is  involved  in 
the  same  ambiguity  as  katalepsis.  In  its  lower 
sense  it  denotes  a  disagreement  over  phenomena 
as  phenomena,  when,  for  instance,  one  man  be¬ 
lieves  on  the  evidence  that  a  stick  in  the  water  is 
really  bent,  and  another  asserts  on  other  evidence 
that  it  is  straight.  In  most  cases  of  this  order, 
agreement  of  a  practical  sort  at  least  may  soon 
be  reached ;  though  there  are  obscure  phenomena 
less  easy  to  decide.  But  in  its  higher  range  the 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


324 

word  signifies  the  discord  of  views  in  regard  to 
ethical  opinions,  such  as  justice,  piety,  decency, 
and,  beyond  these,  in  regard  to  the  ultimate  na¬ 
ture  of  things,  where  the  battle  between  dogma¬ 
tists  and  sceptics  has  been,  and  still  is,  hotly 
waged. 

Now,  if  we  take  the  attitude  towards  these 
two  terms  as  a  key  to  classify  the  various  scep¬ 
tical  and  non-sceptical  schools,  it  will  be  seen 
that  there  are  four  combinations  possible : 

(1)  Acceptance  of  katalepsis  and  denial  of 
isostheneia, , 

( 2 )  Acceptance  of  katalepsis  and  acceptance 
of  isostheneia. 

(3)  Denial  of  katalepsis  and  acceptance  of 
isostheneia , 

(4)  Denial  of  katalepsis  and  denial  of  isos¬ 
theneia. 

Of  these  four  combinations  the  first  manifestly 
is  dogmatic ;  the  other  three,  whether  by  the  ac¬ 
ceptance  of  isostheneia  or  by  the  denial  of  kata¬ 
lepsis,  are  in  different  ways  and  degrees  scep¬ 
tical. 

(1)  In  the  actual  war  of  the  schools  at  the 
time  we  are  considering  the  Stoics  were  the  fight¬ 
ing  champions  of  dogmatism,  although  Epicu¬ 
rean  and  Neoplatonist  are  in  other  directions 
equally  divergent  from  scepticism.  The  chil- 


SCEPTICISM 


325 

dren  of  Zeno  held  that  an  impression  might  or 
might  not  correspond  to  objective  reality,  and 
hence  might  be  true  or  false,  but  that  in  the 
phantasm  kataleptike  we  have  an  impression 
which  carries  its  own  guarantee  of  veracious 
correspondence.  Furthermore,  they  held  that  in 
the  “sign”  ( semeion )  of  cause  and  effect  we  have 
evidence  by  which  reason  can  attain  to  a  com¬ 
prehension  of  the  universal  laws  of  nature.  They 
would  admit,  of  course,  that  men  do  actually  dis¬ 
agree  in  their  views  ( witness  the  mad  dogs  of  the 
Academy) ,  but  they  argued  that  only  the  views 
of  the  wise  need  be  considered,  and  that  among 
the  wise  there  is  complete  agreement — as  to  the 
truth  of  Stoicism.  Thus  the  Stoics  accept  kata- 
lepsis  and,  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  reject 
isostheneia. 

(2)  The  Sophists  of  the  Protagorean  stripe, 
going  back  to  Heraclitus  for  their  principles, 
took  as  their  motto  the  famous  dictum,  Man  is 
the  measure  of  all  things,  meaning  by  man  his 
immediate  sensations.  Now  on  this  basis  there  is 
manifestly  no  agreement  among  men,  or  in  the 
same  man  with  himself  from  day  to  day.  Thus, 
honey  is  sweet  to  one  man,  but  to  another  man 
with  the  jaundice  or  to  the  same  man  if  he  falls 
into  that  state  honey  is  bitter,  and  each  is  right 


326  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

in  the  statement  of  his  sensation.  So  far,  in  mak¬ 
ing  the  shifting  sensations  of  men  the  source  of 
isostheneia ,  the  Protagoreans  are  in  accord  with 
the  Pyrrhonists.  But  the  Protagoreans  go  a  step 
further,  and  add  that  man  is  the  measure  of  all 
things  whether  they  are  or  are  not;  that  is  to  say, 
if  honey  gives  to  one  man  the  sensation  of  sweet¬ 
ness,  then  the  honey  is  in  itself  sweet  so  far  as  it 
is  anything,  and  if  it  gives  to  another  man  the 
sensation  of  bitterness,  then  it  is  in  itself  bitter, 
and  by  the  same  token  it  is  at  once  both  sweet 
and  bitter.  In  this  way  the  Protagoreans  com¬ 
bine  the  acceptance  of  isostheneia  with  the  ac¬ 
ceptance  ( inf erentially  at  least)  of  katalepsis. 
Whatever  a  man  feels,  or  thinks  he  feels,  that  is 
true,  not  only  in  respect  of  his  sensation  and  be¬ 
lief,  but  in  so  far  as  there  is  nothing  in  the  na¬ 
ture  of  the  external  object  to  falsify  that  belief. 
There  is  no  distinction  between  true  and  false 
determined  by  correspondence,  but  all  opinions 
are  equally  true.12  The  title  of  such  a  philosophy 
may  be  set  down  as  a  kind  of  negative  dogmat¬ 
ism  or  affirmative  scepticism,  as  you  choose ;  the 
objective  world  becomes  a  mere  chaos  of  contra¬ 
dictory  qualities,  and  the  subjective  world  cor- 


i2Sextus,  Adv.  Math.  VII,  60:  According  to  Protagoras  vaa-as  tAs 
c pavraalas  Kai  t as  5o£a s  a\r]deis  virapx^LV. 


SCEPTICISM 


327 

respondingly  a  mental  chaos.  The  outcome,  if 
carried  logically  into  the  moral  realm,  is  that 
rule  of  brute  force  which  we  find  actually  advo¬ 
cated  by  Thrasymachus  and  other  unflinching 
sophists  in  the  Dialogues  of  Plato.  Since  there 
is  no  inherent  distinction  between  true  and  false, 
right  and  wrong,  but  that  is  true  and  right  which 
each  man  takes  to  be  so,  the  struggle  of  life  will 
be  to  make  my  true  and  right  prevail  over  other 
men’s  true  and  right. 

(3)  However  it  may  have  been  with  Aenesi- 
demus  and  his  relation  to  Heraclitus,13  the  com¬ 
plete  Pyrrhonist  inclined  rather  to  the  side  of 
Democritus,  in  so  far  as,  like  Democritus,  he 
denied  katalepsis  and  accepted  isostheneia.  Man 
is  the  measure,  but  he  is  the  measure  of  his  im¬ 
mediate  sensations  only.  Of  things  themselves 
the  Pyrrhonist  does  not  say,  for  instance,  that 
they  are  sweet  or  bitter,  or  both  sweet  and  bit¬ 
ter,  nor  of  acts  that  they  are  right  or  wrong,  or 
both  right  and  wrong,  but  uses  the  words  sweet 
and  bitter,  right  and  wrong,  as  purely  conven¬ 
tional  terms.  Our  judgments  may  or  may  not 
correspond  with  the  nature  of  things ;  they  may 
be  true,  but,  as  is  shown  by  the  complete  absence 
of  agreement  among  men,  we  have  no  criterion 


isSee  Appendix  C. 


328  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

to  determine  whether  or  when  they  are  true. 
Hence  there  is  no  truth  for  us  in  the  sense  of 
certain  knowledge.  There  is  even  no  way  of 
knowing  whether  we  are  approaching  to,  or  di¬ 
verging  from,  the  objective  truth,  or  whether 
there  is  any  stable  law  to  which  we  can  approach. 
In  all  these  matters  the  Pyrrhonist  insisted  on 
suspension  of  judgment. 

(4)  Finally,  there  are  the  sceptics  of  the  Mid¬ 
dle  Academy,  who  deny  both  katalepsis  and,  in 
a  manner,  isostheneia.  In  demonstrating  the 
inability  of  physical  sensation  and  reason  to  dis¬ 
cover  the  ultimate  nature  of  things,  they  reject¬ 
ed  katalepsis  just  as  the  Pyrrhonist  did.  In 
regard  to  isostheneia  their  relation  to  the  follow¬ 
ers  of  Pyrrho  is  more  complicated.  Having 
shown  the  irreconcilable  diversity  of  human 
opinions,  the  Pyrrhonist  saw  that,  as  a  simple 
matter  of  fact,  a  certain  mode  of  thinking  and 
acting  did  prevail  in  the  society  which  imme¬ 
diately  surrounded  him,  and  this  convention  of 
the  time  and  place  he  simply  accepted  as  a  rule 
of  life  with  no  question  asked  as  to  ultimate  truth 
or  agreement.  The  Academic  argued  that  the 
agreement  in  certain  matters  took  a  wider  circle 
than  the  Pyrrhonist  acknowledged  and  that  this 
larger  accord  might  be  used  as  guide  to  a  sort 


SCEPTICISM 


329 

of  pragmatic  truth.  Even  here  was  indeed  no 
ground  for  absolute  certitude  that  we  were 
choosing  the  wiser  course  so  long  as  any  dis¬ 
agreement  could  be  pointed  to  or  could  be  sup¬ 
posed  to  exist,  but  some  ground  for  probability 
there  might  be,  varying  in  cogency  as  the  agree¬ 
ment  among  men  prevailed  more  or  less  widely. 
Practically,  the  substitution  of  conviction  based 
on  probability  for  mere  conformity  based  on 
suspension  of  judgment  gave  a  larger  basis  to 
the  sceptical  manner  of  life,  strengthening  the 
right  of  an  individual  citizen’s  judgment  against 
the  opinion  of  the  narrow  circle  about  him,  yet 
limiting  the  presumptuous  claims  of  individ¬ 
ualism  by  the  broader,  if  never  unanimous,  con¬ 
sensus  of  mankind.  Theoretically,  the  canon  of 
probability  is  in  line  with  the  scepticism  of  the 
Platonic,  or  Socratic,  stamp,  which  differed  es¬ 
sentially  from  that  of  Pyrrho.  The  position  of 
the  Middle  Academy,  in  fact,  wavers  between 
the  fixed  poles  of  Pyrrhonism  and  Platonism, 
and  is  less  stable  than  either. 


V 

We  can  now  consider  a  little  more  fully  the 
philosophy  of  Pyrrho  in  its  final  development 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


330 

as  presented  by  Sextus.  Then  the  last  stage  of 
our  discussion  will  be  to  show  how  the  Pyrrhon- 
ist  and  the  Platonist,  though  votaries  of  the 
same  method,  reached  very  different  conclu¬ 
sions;  and  by  following  their  paths  we  shall,  I 
trust,  obtain  a  clearer  insight  into  the  scope  and 
value  of  scepticism  generally.  As  a  preliminary 
I  will  ask  the  reader  to  examine  with  some  care 
the  subjoined  diagram,  and  to  have  it  ready  for 
reference  at  the  successive  steps  of  the  argument. 


00 

o 

hH 

EH 

W 

W 

C-H 

◄ 


w 

H 

w 

ft 

W 


PHILOSOPHY 

METAPHYSICS 

Physical 

affections 

/  Science 

(  Ataraxy 

Monism  of  chance 
or  determinism 

A  bsolute  hedonism 
or  optimism 

Spiritual 

AFFECTIONS 

/  Idealism 

(  Eudaemonism 

Transcendental 

monism 

Antinomianism 
or  asceticism 14 

If  we  get  behind  the  scenes,  so  to  speak,  if  we 
reach  the  forces  that  animated  the  various  sects 
and  set  them  at  one  another’s  throats,  we  shall 
find  that  the  aim  of  the  sceptics  in  a  special  man- 

i4Words  in  l.c.  Roman  ( e.g .,  Science)  indicate  what  both  Pyr- 
rhonist  and  Platonist  accept. 

Words  in  Italics  {e.g.,  Monism,  Transcendental )  indicate  what 
both  reject. 

Words  in  sin.  caps,  {e.g.,  Spiritual)  indicate  what  the  Pry- 
rhonist  rejects  but  the  Platonist  accepts. 


SCEPTICISM  331 

ner — an  honourable  aim  in  the  best  of  them — 
was  to  live  in  a  world  of  facts.  Pyrrhonism  de¬ 
veloped  in  an  age  when  the  thinking  men  of 
Greece  were  divided  into  hostile  camps,  each  of 
which  claimed  the  sole  possession  of  the  truth, 
and  was  ready  to  contend  for  the  field  against 
all  comers — Eleatic  against  Heraclitean,  Peri¬ 
patetic  against  Academic,  Cynic  against  Cyre- 
naic,  Stoic  against  Epicurean;  not  to  mention 
Megarian  and  Democritean  and  Sophist  and  I 
know  not  what  other  roving  guerilla  bands. 
Where  lay  the  truth  for  which  they  were  fight¬ 
ing?  Who  should  decide  among  these  implaca¬ 
ble  combatants  ?  And  might  it  be  that  there  was 
no  such  truth  at  all,  and  could  this  fair  valley 
land  of  their  desire  be  only  a  mirage  of  the  brain, 
which  would  vanish  away  at  approach,  and  leave 
the  victor,  if  victor  there  should  be,  still  pursu¬ 
ing  phantoms  in  a  waste  of  sand?  Such  a  state 
was  not  peculiar  to  that  era  of  Greek  philoso¬ 
phy  ;  it  has  occurred  many  times,  and  will  occur 
again  whenever  men  are  swayed  by  the  libido 
sciendi.  It  was  only  yesterday  that  one  of  our 
poets  wrote : 

“And  we  are  here  as  on  a  darkling  plain 
Swept  with  confused  alarms  'of  struggle  and  flight, 
Where  ignorant  armies  clash  by  night.” 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


332 

Now  all  this  embittered  confusion  the  sceptic 
brushed  away  with  the  single  magic  word  isos - 
theneia.  Where  there  is  no  agreement  and  no  um¬ 
pire,  there  can  be  no  certitude  of  truth,  no  know¬ 
ledge  ;  where  theory  only  provokes  counter  the¬ 
ory,  and  discussion  proceeds  to  endless  division 
of  beliefs,  he  simply  withdrew  from  the  field  and 
took  refuge  in  suspension  of  judgment:  Away 
with  the  vain  chase  altogether,  let  me  plant  my 
feet  here  at  home  on  indisputable  ground.  The 
facts  beyond  dispute  he  expressed  by  the  phrase 
“immediate  affections”  ( oikeia  pathe) .  Certain 
perceptions,  he  said,  I  have  about  which  no  man 
can  argue,  from  the  knowledge  of  which  no  logic 
can  evict  me.  This  chair  I  see,  this  table  I  do 
here  and  now  perceive :  I  say  nothing  about  the 
chair  itself,  or  the  table  itself;  apart  from  my 
sensation  I  make  no  assertion  about  anything 
whatsoever,  leaving  you  to  wrangle  over  your 
theories  of  ultimate  reality  like  dogs  over  a  bone; 
but  the  image  in  my  mind,  which  I  call  a  chair  or 
a  table,  that  I  have  and  know.  And  so  with  my 
present  sensations  of  pleasure  and  pain;  my 
hopes  and  fears ;  my  memory  of  past  sensations, 
whatever  memory  may  be;  my  passing  reflec¬ 
tions,  however  they  may  come  to  me, — all  these 


SCEPTICISM 


333 

are  immediate,  they  are  my  own,  they  are  not 
inference  but  fact. 

So  far  the  attitude  of  the  sceptic  is  perfectly 
simple  and  comprehensible.  But  the  sceptic,  like 
every  other  man,  must  live;  and  the  question 
arises  on  what  basis  he  shall  conduct  his  life,  and 
how  he  shall  escape  falling  into  the  same  sort  of 
theorizing  as  that  which  he  has  condemned  in  the 
dogmatists.  Here  enters  the  distinction  I  have 
indicated  in  the  diagram  by  the  rather  arbitrary 
use  of  the  words  philosophy  and  metaphysics. 
The  terminology,  I  confess  frankly,  is  not  that 
of  the  ancient  Pyrrhonist,  who  denied  categoric¬ 
ally  that  he  had  any  philosophia  and  admitted 
only  an  agoge ,  or  manner  of  life ;  philosophy  and 
metaphysics  in  his  language  were  all  one,  and 
equally  objectionable.  But  our  tongue  has  no 
equivalent  for  the  Greek  agoge ,  and  in  accord¬ 
ance  with  the  usage  in  the  previous  volumes  of 
this  series  I  shall  here  confine  the  term  philoso¬ 
phy  to  the  narrower  scope  of  reason  permitted 
in  the  sceptical  and  in  all  the  other  schools,  and 
apply  the  term  metaphysics  to  that  further  use 
of  the  reason,  different  indeed  from  philosophy 
in  kind  as  well  as  in  degree,  where  sceptic  and 
dogmatic  drew  apart. 

This  distinction  granted,  it  remains  to  show 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


334 

what  philosophy  the  Pyrrhonist  followed,  and 
how  he  j  ustified  his  adherence  to  any  philosophy. 
In  the  first  place  Sextus  emphatically  asserted 
his  right  as  a  sceptic  to  work  in  the  field  of  sci¬ 
ence,  properly  defined  and  limited.  “The  phe¬ 
nomena  of  nature,”  according  to  the  well-known 
division  of  Mill,  “exist  in  two  distinct  relations 
to  one  another ;  that  of  simultaneity,  and  that  of 
succession.”15  Hence  the  two  categories  of  the 
“uniformities  of  coexistence”  and  the  “uniform¬ 
ities  of  causation,”  by  which  scientific  procedure 
falls  into  the  two  types  of  (1)  classificatory  or 
descriptive,  and  ( 2 )  genetic  or  mechanical.  And 
in  both  of  these  types,  with  due  restrictions,  the 
sceptic  might  feel  himself  perfectly  at  home, 
since  both  simultaneity  and  succession  he  ac¬ 
cepts  as  immediate  affections.  He  perceives  as 
simple  facts  of  sensation  that  certain  phenomena 
appear  together  and  certain  others  apart  from 
one  another,  and  hence  can  be  classified  by  de¬ 
scription  ;  he  perceives  also  that  certain  phenom¬ 
ena  appear  regularly  in  succession,  and  hence 
can  be  classified  in  the  manner  of  the  genetic  or 
mechanical  sciences.  So  in  the  science  of  which 
Sextus  himself  was  a  student,  he  found  no  in¬ 
compatibility  in  joining  the  profession  of  com- 


is System  of  Logic  III,  v,  1. 


SCEPTICISM 


335 

plete  scepticism  with  the  practice  of  the  Me¬ 
thodic  branch  of  medicine.  So,  too,  in  the  books 
written  by  him  against  the  encyclical  studies 
(grammar,  rhetoric,  geometry,  arithmetic,  as¬ 
tronomy,  music) ,  the  arguments  in  each  case  are 
directed  not  against,  e.g,,  grammar  as  an  empi¬ 
rical  study  of  the  observable  facts  of  speech,  but 
against  theories  of  language  based  on  rational 
analogies  and  the  supposed  nature  of  things. 

Why  is  it  then,  one  asks,  that  the  sceptics  have 
been  accused  of  “denying  the  possibility  of  all 
science”?18  The  error,  apparently,  must  be  at¬ 
tributed  to  the  differences  of  terminology  which 
are  the  source  of  endless  other  misunderstand¬ 
ings  in  modern  commentators ;  and  to  this  source 
of  error  should  be  added,  as  particularly  viru¬ 
lent  in  our  treatment  of  the  sceptics,  the  deeply 
ingrained  conceit  of  ourselves  as  wiser  than  our 
progenitors.  Now  it  is  a  remarkable  fact  that 
the  Greeks,  though  they  gave  the  impulse  to 
scientific  procedure  in  the  western  world  and 
were  indeed  eminently  scientific  in  their  method 
of  thought,  yet  had  no  specific  term  for  science 
as  a  field  lying  between  the  utilitarian  arts 

ifiM.  M.  Patrick,  Sextus  Empiricus  and  Greek  Scepticism  96. — 
The  German  critics  are  sounder.  See  Goedeckemeyer  261,  283; 
Richter  97ff.  It  is  fair  to  add  that  Antiochus  was  brought  to 
reject  scepticism  on  the  ground  that  it  made  science  as  well  as 
every  other  human  activity  impossible. 


336  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

( technai )  at  the  one  extreme,  and  at  the  other 
extreme  physics  (ta physika ) ,  which  in  the  Hel¬ 
lenistic  use  of  the  word  includes  also  metaphys¬ 
ics  and  theology.  The  case,  let  us  admit,  presents 
its  difficulties;  for  while  Sextus  is  really  inveigh¬ 
ing  against  those  who  deal  with  art  and  meta¬ 
physics  as  if  they  were  science,  the  historical  crit¬ 
ic,  owing  to  the  lack  of  a  specific  word  for  sci¬ 
ence,  is  in  danger  of  overlooking  the  fact  that 
true  science  is  not  embraced  in  the  destructive 
arguments.  There  is,  however,  this  compensa¬ 
tion  in  the  linguistic  ambiguity,  that  it  points  to  a 
like  and  almost  universal  ambiguity  in  thinking. 
For  it  happens  today,  as  it  happened  in  the  far 
past,  that  the  scientist,  so  soon  as  he  lays  down 
his  scalpel  and  his  scales,  and  begins  to  general¬ 
ize  and  define,  is  tempted  to  break  through  the 
hampering  circle  of  permitted  classification  and 
to  indulge  in  abstractions  as  unreal  as  those 
of  the  professed  metaphysician  or  theologian, 
whom  he  so  often  despises.  And  it  was  against 
this  metaphysical  extension  of  science  that  the 
sceptic  directed  his  batteries. 

Now  the  ultimate  data  of  science  (or  physics 
in  our  use  of  the  word,  not  the  ancient)  are  mass 
{soma  the  Greeks  called  it)  and  motion  and 
energy;  and  the  first  fatal  step  in  rationalism  is 


SCEPTICISM 


337 

taken  when  the  scientist,  not  content  to  employ 
these  immediate  and  inexplicable  facts  of  sensa¬ 
tion,  tries,  as  it  were,  to  go  behind  the  returns, 
and  seeks  by  some  legerdemain  of  definition  to 
comprehend  what  these  phenomena  are  in  them¬ 
selves.  The  Stoics  started  the  merry  game  when, 
for  the  sake  of  a  supposedly  clarifying  simplifi¬ 
cation,  they  undertook  to  define  energy  ( tonos ) 
in  terms  of  mass  and  motion,  and  then,  pushed 
by  their  foes  of  the  Academy,  were  compelled 
to  define  mass  and  motion  in  terms  of  energy, 
and  so,  in  their  eagerness  to  embrace  a  cloud, 
found  themselves  like  Ixion  nailed  to  an  ever- 
revolving  wheel.17 

If  the  deluded  scientist  attempts  to  escape 
from  this  vicious  circle  by  defining  his  physical 
data  in  terms  of  mathematics  (number,  addition 
and  subtraction,  whole  and  part) ,  the  sceptic  is 
at  his  heels  with  arguments  to  show  that  we  have 
no  clearer  comprehension  of  what  number  itself 
is  than  of  what  mass  itself  is,  nor  of  the  process 
of  addition  and  subtraction,  nor  of  the  relation 
of  whole  and  part.  These  elements  of  mathe¬ 
matics  are  the  immediate  data  of  the  mind,  be¬ 
hind  which  we  cannot  go,  as  mass  and  motion 
and  energy  are  the  immediate  data  of  the  senses, 


i?See  Appendix  A. 


338  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

and  the  endeavour  to  explain  the  latter  by  the 
former  is  merely  a  vain  effort  to  define  obscu- 
rum  per  obscurius.  And  the  metaphysical  scien¬ 
tist  is  no  better  off  if  he  undertakes  to  get  behind 
the  data  of  the  senses  and  the  mind  by  defining 
them  in  the  terms  of  space  and  time.  This  indeed 
is  to  fall  into  a  depth  of  confusion  which  might 
be  described  as  obscurius  per  obs  cur  is  simum.  To 
begin  with  the  sceptic  had  no  difficulty  in  dem¬ 
onstrating  that  any  attempt  to  make  either  space 
itself  or  time  itself  comprehensible  to  the  under¬ 
standing  is  of  all  metaphysical  follies  the  most 
foolhardy.  And  there  is  this  last  inextricable 
entanglement,  that  any  psychological  definition 
of  either  space  or  time,  of  the  sort  desired  by 
the  deluded  scientist,  involves  the  use  of  both 
space  and  time  together,  and  this  coordinate 
use  of  space  and  time  means  that  space  will  be 
expressed  in  terms  of  time  and  time  in  terms  of 
space,  although  each  of  these  is  so  contrary  in 
its  nature  to  the  other  that  any  such  reciprocity 
of  terms  results  in  the  virtual  abolition  of  both 
as  immediately  given  to  us  in  experience.18 

This  is  a  thorny  brake  through  which  I  have 
dragged  the  reader,  and  unprofitable  as  well,  I 
fear,  unless  he  has  had  the  good  will  to  follow  up 

is Adv.  Math.  II,  6  ff.,  169  ff.,  Ill,  19  ff.,  85  ff.,  I,  161  ff.,  311  ff.; 
Hyp.  Ill,  131,  142. 


SCEPTICISM 


339 

the  references.  But,  however  thorny  and  repel¬ 
lent  the  discussion  may  be,  it  is  a  fact  that  no  sci¬ 
entist  of  antiquity,  who  sought  to  go  behind  ap¬ 
pearances,  could  escape  the  dilemmas  into  which 
his  sceptical  antagonist  threw  him;  and  the 
makers  of  hypotheses  today  in  regard  to  mass 
and  energy  would  fare  no  better,  had  not  the 
critical  sense  been  pretty  well  frightened  out  of 
the  field  by  the  superstition  that  whatever  is  said 
by  a  man  of  science  must  be  science. 

The  next  step  towards  the  bog  of  metaphys¬ 
ics  is  taken  when  we  proceed  to  deal  with  the  re¬ 
lation  of  succession  and  the  genetic  branch  of 
science  in  the  terms  of  sensation.  Now  in  one 
sense  the  sceptic  no  more  denies  causality  than 
does  the  dogmatist.  “The  law  of  causation, ’’says 
Mill,  “the  recognition  of  which  is  the  main  pil¬ 
lar  of  inductive  science,  is  but  the  familiar  truth, 
that  invariability  of  succession  is  found  by  ob¬ 
servation  to  obtain  between  every  fact  in  nature 
and  some  other  fact  which  has  preceded  it;  in¬ 
dependently  of  all  considerations  respecting 
the  ultimate  mode  of  production  of  phenomena, 
and  of  every  other  question  regarding  the  na¬ 
ture  of  ‘things  themselves.’  ”  To  this  statement 
the  sceptic  would  in  the  main  assent,  though 
he  would  refuse  the  word  “law”  quite  the  full 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


340 

meaning  it  has  in  Mill,  and  would  regard  causa¬ 
tion  rather  as  a  subordinate  division  of  the  gen¬ 
eral  principle  of  classification  than  as  a  princi¬ 
ple  antecedent  to  classification.  But,  however 
that  may  be,  the  sceptic  does  not  deny  the  se¬ 
quence  of  cause  and  effect  as  a  matter  of  obser¬ 
vation.  That  is  to  say,  he  admits  freely  as  one  of 
his  immediate  affections  the  memory  of  a  cer¬ 
tain  invariability  of  succession.  He  knows  that 
as  a  fact  of  memory,  whatever  memory  may  be, 
he  has  seen  colts  always  born  from  horses  and 
children  from  men,  and  he  knows  by  the  same 
token  that  he  has  acted  on  the  supposition  that 
this  invariability  in  the  past  would  continue  in 
the  future  and  has  not  been  deceived  in  so  act¬ 
ing.  So  far  he  is  ready  to  admit  that  the  exist¬ 
ence  of  causation  as  a  term  for  observed  se¬ 
quences  is  convincing  by  its  own  evidence. 

The  sceptic  withholds  his  assent  only  when 
the  rationalizing  scientist  proceeds  to  analyse 
the  operation  of  causality,  or  to  define  its  na¬ 
ture,  or  to  draw  inferences  from  it  as  from  a  ra¬ 
tionally  comprehensible  and  ultimate  law.  Here 
Sextus  brings  forward  the  contradictions  into 
which  the  rationalist  falls  the  moment  he  begins 
to  define  a  cause  in  terms  suitable  to  what  is  cor¬ 
poreal  or  what  is  incorporeal,  or  as  operating  in 


SCEPTICISM 


34i 

space  or  in  time,  or  as  dissociated  from  or  asso¬ 
ciated  with  its  effect,  or  as  simple  or  as  mul¬ 
tiple.10  In  the  end  his  destructive  argument 
amounts  to  this:  the  phenomenon  of  physical 
causation,  like  the  previously  discussed  phenom¬ 
ena  of  mass  and  motion  and  energy,  is  condi¬ 
tioned  on  the  two  simultaneous  factors  of  time 
and  space;  but  each  of  these  factors  presents 
conditions  peculiar  to  itself  and  exclusive  of, 
even  contradictory  to,  the  conditions  presented 
by  the  other  factor,  so  that  when  we  attempt  to 
define  a  cause  in  the  terms  of  these  inevitably 
concomitant  factors  we  become  entangled  in  a 
network  of  incoherencies.  Again,  we  are  blocked 
by  a  wall  of  ignorance.  If,  to  escape  these  entan¬ 
glements,  the  dogmatist  will  limit  his  efforts  at 
definition  to  the  simple  statement  that  cause  is 
a  matter  of  relativity,  Sextus  will  assent ;  but  he 
will  add  that  relativity  is  purely  a  conception 
of  the  mind,  as  he  elsewhere  sufficiently  demon¬ 
strated,  and  that  it  gives  us  no  knowledge  of  an 
objective  operation.20  To  say  that  causality  is  a 
causal  relation  leaves  the  term  causal  still  to  be 
defined. 

The  conclusion  then  of  the  whole  argument, 

1 9Jdv.  Math.  IX,  203,  210,  227,  232,  237,  252,  246. 

20 Adv.  Math.  IX,  207;  VIII,  453  ft. 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


342 

developed  from  the  eight  tropes  of  Aeneside- 
mus,  will  be  that  causality,  as  a  phenomenon  of 
experience,  seems  to  exist,  but  that,  if  the  exist¬ 
ence  of  an  operation  is  made  to  depend  on  our 
ability  to  give  a  coherent  definition  or  rational 
explanation  of  its  nature,  then  causality  seems 
not  to  exist ;  and  between  these  two  positions  the 
sceptic  will  hold  his  judgment  in  suspense. 

It  might  seem  as  if  this  debate  with  the  scien¬ 
tific  dogmatists  were  little  better  than  quarrel¬ 
ing  over  words;  for,  after  all,  if  you  grant  the 
facts,  or  apparent  facts,  of  mass,  motion,  and 
energy,  number,  time,  and  space,  causality,  as 
elements  of  our  immediate  experience,  what  dif¬ 
ference  does  it  make  whether  you  deny  our  abil¬ 
ity  to  go  behind  the  returns  and  to  define  the  na¬ 
ture  of  these  elements?  Well,  it  does  make  a  ser¬ 
ious  difference.  For  the  assumption  that  we  can 
arrive  at  an}^  rationally  definable  knowledge  of 
these  things  is,  as  it  were,  the  half-way  house  be¬ 
tween  legitimate  science  and  pure  metaphysics, 
and  having  gone  so  far,  the  mind  is  urged  on 
almost  irresistibly  to  the  last  plunge  into  the 
abyss,  of  which  plunge  the  results  are  palpable 
enough.  So  long  as  physical  causation  is  accept¬ 
ed  as  nothing  more  than  the  memory  of  certain 
sensations  which  have  appeared  in  succession. 


SCEPTICISM 


343 

the  mind  is  checked  in  its  impulse  to  draw  rigid 
and  absolute  conclusions  from  these  phenomena ; 
but  once  grant  that  physical  causation  is  an  im¬ 
mutable  and  universal  law  of  mass  and  energy, 
a  law  of  whose  nature  and  operation  we  have 
sure  knowledge,  grant  this  and  what  can  save  us 
from  leaping  to  the  metaphysical  conception  of 
the  world  as  a  vast  all-embracing  mechanism  of 
matter,  wheels  within  wheels  for  ever  grinding 
on  in  ruthless  indifference  to  whatever  may  be 
caught  in  their  cogs?  The  Epicurean  may  de¬ 
fine  his  world  as  composed  of  atoms  dancing 
frantically  through  the  void,  the  Stoic  may  de¬ 
fine  the  same  world  as  a  continuous  substance 
for  ever  palpitating  with  a  kind  of  internal  con¬ 
traction  and  expansion;  the  Epicurean  may  de¬ 
ny  the  presence  of  any  design  in  his  rain  of 
atoms,  the  Stoic  may  deny  the  presence  of  any¬ 
thing  but  design  in  the  everlasting  recurrence 
of  change — all  is  one.  In  either  case  the  liberty 
and  security  of  the  spirit,  which  these  philoso¬ 
phies  started  out  to  discover  on  the  pathway  of 
physical  law,  end  in  the  mockery  of  an  inhu¬ 
man  fatality.  It  was  against  such  a  result  that 
the  sceptic  was  fighting.  For  this  purpose  he 
harped  with  exasperating  tenacity  on  the  con¬ 
tradictions  within  each  of  the  metaphysical  sys- 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


344 

terns,  and  on  the  contradictions  of  system  with 
system;  and  so,  by  virtue  of  the  universal  isos- 
theneia  of  reason  and  opinion,  confirmed  the 
position  of  Socrates,  that  in  regard  to  the  ul¬ 
timate  nature  of  things  our  only  knowledge 
is  that  we  know  nothing.21  “There  was  in  Sais,” 
says  Plutarch  in  his  essay  on  Isis  and  Osiris,  “a 
statue  of  Athena,  whom  they  call  Isis,  with  this 
inscription:  T  am  all  that  has  been,  and  is,  and 

21 A  neat  illustration  of  the  false  extension  of  thought  from  scep¬ 
ticism  and  legitimate  science  to  metaphysical  pseudo-science  may 
be  found  in  the  works  of  Huxley.  His  scepticism,  or  agnosticism, 
has  as  its  positive  side  this  “clear  result  of  the  investigation  start¬ 
ed  by  Descartes,  that  there  is  one  thing  of  which  no  doubt  can 
be  entertained,  .  .  .  and  that  is  the  momentary  consciousness  we 
call  a  present  thought  or  feeling”  (Works,  Eversley  edition,  VI, 
65).  This  is  precisely  the  Pyrrhonic  oikeion  pathos,  “immediate 
affection.”  Huxley’s  practical  work  as  an  observer  of  nature  and 
experimenter,  and  his  theory  of  science  as  concerned  with  the 
classification  of  our  observations,  are  still  purely  Pyrrhonic.  So 
too  is  his  acceptance  of  Hume’s  analysis  of  causality:  “The  re¬ 
lation  of  cause  and  effect  is  a  particular  case  of  the  process  of 
[mental]  association;  that  is  to  say,  is  a  result  of  the  process  of 
which  it  is  supposed  to  be  the  cause”  (VI,  83).  This,  I  take  it, 
is  the  Pyrrhonic  canon  of  to  pros  ti .  So  too  Huxley  remains  a 
Pyrrhonist  in  his  acceptance  of  Hume’s  distinction  between  sci¬ 
ence  and  metaphysics  (VI,  69).  But  when  he  goes  on  to  make 
cause  and  effect  an  absolute  and  universal  law  of  nature,  to 
doubt  which  would  be  self-destruction  on  the  part  of  science  (V, 
70),  when  he  declares  that  Darwinian  evolution  is  “no  specula¬ 
tion  but  a  generalization  of  certain  facts”  (V,  42)  ;  and,  further, 
that  “the  materials  of  consciousness  are  products  of  cerebral  ac¬ 
tivity”  (VI,  94),  that  we  are  pure  “automata,”  that  all  causa¬ 
tion  is  of  a  material,  mechanical  sort,  and  that  “man,  physical, 
intellectual,  and  moral,  is  as  much  a  part  of  nature,  as  pure¬ 
ly  a  product  of  the  cosmic  process,  as  the  humblest  weed”  (IX, 
11),  then  he  slips  from  scepticism  and  genuine  science,  to  ra¬ 
tionalizing  science  and  pure  metaphysics.  I  have  dealt  with  this 
subject  at  length  in  Shelburne  Essays  VIII. 


SCEPTICISM 


345 

shall  be,  and  no  mortal  ever  yet  has  withdrawn 
my  garment.’  ” 


VI 

Such  was  the  philosophy  of  the  Pyrrhonist  in 
the  intellectual  sphere,  and  such  his  rejection  of 
any  theory  of  truth  approaching  metaphysics. 
What  will  be  the  limits  of  his  philosophy  in  the 
practical  and  emotional  sphere?  How  shall  a 
man  bear  himself  in  a  life  surrounded  and  shut 
in  by  walls  of  ignorance?  Should  the  sceptic, 
having  surrendered  the  hope  of  positive  know¬ 
ledge,  carry  his  denial  on  to  what  may  seem  at 
first  its  logical  conclusion  in  nihilism  and  black 
despair?  Such,  certainly,  has  been  the  outcome 
of  doubt  in  many  minds.  It  was  the  undernote 
of  the  epigrammatists  of  the  Greek  Anthology. 
In  modern  times  it  has  been  voiced  by  James 
Thomson  with  dismaying  clarity: 

“For  life  is  but  a  dream  whose  shapes  return, 

Some  frequently,  some  seldom,  some  by  night 
And  some  by  day,  some  night  and  day:  we  learn, 
The  while  all  change  and  many  vanish  quite, 

In  their  recurrence  with  recurrent  changes 
A  certain  seeming  order ;  where  this  ranges 

We  count  things  real;  such  is  memory’s  might.” 

That  was  precisely  the  stand  taken  by  the  an- 


346  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

cient  sceptic  so  far  as  science  was  admitted  into 
his  philosophy ;  and,  one  may  add,  it  was  the  at¬ 
titude  of  Plato  towards  the  moving  shadows 
cast  on  the  wall  before  the  prisoners  of  the  cave. 
But  what  of  the  moral  effect  of  this  illusion,  as 
Thomson  depicts  it  on  the  face  of  the  “Image” 
that  sits  enthroned  above  his  City  of  Dreadful 
Night,  the  woman  of  Albrecht’s  Diirer’s  “ Mel - 
encolia 

“But  as  if  blacker  night  could  dawn  on  night, 

With  tenfold  gloom  on  moonless  night  unstarred, 
A  sense  more  tragic  than  defeat  and  blight, 

More  desperate  than  strife  with  hope  debarred, 
More  fatal  than  the  adamantine  Never 
Encompassing  her  passionate  endeavour. 

Dawns  glooming  in  her  tenebrous  regard : 

“The  sense  that  every  struggle  brings  defeat 

Because  Fate  holds  no  prize  to  crown  success ; 
That  all  the  oracles  are  dumb  or  cheat 
Because  they  have  no  secret  to  express  ; 

That  none  can  pierce  the  vast  black  veil  uncertain 
Because  there  is  no  light  beyond  the  curtain ; 

That  all  is  vanity  and  nothingness.” 

Such  may  be  one  of  the  fruits  of  disillusion, 
but  not  of  the  kind  indulged  by  Pyrrho  and  Sex¬ 
tus.  They  would  say  that  this  tragic  bitterness 
of  defeat  meant  the  rebellion  of  a  mind  con- 


SCEPTICISM 


347 

vincedthat  it  had  laid  bare  the  foundation  of  the 
world  and  saw  all  things  rooted  in  ignominy: 
“For  out  of  unreason  spring  all  things  that  are.” 
That,  they  would  say,  is  not  doubt  at  all,  but  a 
kind  of  inverted  and  sullen  dogmatism.  The  true 
sceptic,  they  maintained,  was  of  all  men  most 
justified  in  claiming  a  certain  ease  and  tranquil¬ 
lity  of  mind,  owing  to  the  very  fact  that  he  re¬ 
fused  to  pass  any  judgment  at  all  on  the  ulti¬ 
mate  nature  of  the  world. 

If  we  analyse  this  boasted  ataraxy  of  Pyr¬ 
rho  it  will  appear  to  be  made  up  of  about  equal 
parts  of  the  Socratic  hedonism  and  apathy. 
What  pleasures  life  affords  the  sceptic  will  grasp 
and  enjoy,  asking  no  question  as  to  their  hidden 
source  or  end.  If  troubles  and  pain  befall  him, 
as  they  come  in  varying  guise  to  all  men, — 

“For  not  of  ancient  oak  nor  yet  of  stone 
He  springs,  but  doth  a  human  kinship  own,” — 

these  too  he  will  accept,  and  render  as  light  as 
may  he  by  endurance,  not  denying  their  reality 
nor  rebelling  against  them  as  an  outrage  put 
upon  him  by  some  malevolent  Power.  Such  is 
the  proper  mood  of  one  who  limits  his  know¬ 
ledge  to  the  immediate  affections.22 


22 A  dv.  Math.  XI,  141  ff. 


348  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

As  for  the  attitude  towards  society  and  the 
kind  of  conduct  best  suited  to  secure  this  state 
of  tranquillity — for  like  the  partisans  of  the 
other  sects  the  sceptics  also  aimed  at  a  measure 
of  security — Sextus  states  his  position  fairly: 
“We  follow  a  certain  sort  of  reasoning  based 
upon  appearances,  which  instructs  us  to  live  in 
accordance  with  the  manners  and  laws  and  char¬ 
acter  of  our  people,  and  with  our  own  imme¬ 
diate  affections.”  If  our  fellow  citizens  worship 
the  gods,  we  too  will  worship,  not  in  scornful  su¬ 
periority,  but  with  humble  acquiescence  in  what 
men  believe;  if  they  cherish  the  family  and  make 
a  virtue  of  the  other  amenities  of  the  heart,  we 
too  will  be  domestic  and  kind.  All  this  the  sceptic 
will  do  on  no  fixed  principle  of  morality,  but 
rather  in  despair  of  discovering  any  better  guide 
than  the  custom  and  beliefs  in  which  he  has  been 
brought  up. 

In  practice  the  code  of  the  Pyrrhonist  comes 
pretty  close  to  that  of  the  Cyrenaic;  but  it  dif¬ 
fers  in  so  far  as  the  Cyrenaic  makes  particular 
pleasures  the  set  purpose  of  his  life  and  the  test 
of  wisdom,  whereas  the  Pyrrhonist  simply  wel¬ 
comes  what  pleasures  may  come  to  him  with,  so 
far  as  possible,  a  genial  indifference  to  fate.23 


zzHypotyposes  I,  215. 


SCEPTICISM  349 

F urther,  the  two  schools  differ  in  their  attitude 
towards  society,  as  conformity  differs  from  adap¬ 
tability.  The  Pyrrhonist  conforms  to  the  preva¬ 
lent  customs  and  sentiments  in  a  spirit  of  gen¬ 
uine  scepticism ;  the  Cyrenaic  finds  his  profit  in 
adapting  himself  to  current  opinions  with  a 
more  or  less  cynical  contempt  for  what  he  be¬ 
lieves  to  be  false,  fluctuating  between  the  mod¬ 
esty  of  a  Pyrrho  and  the  insolence  of  a  Thrasy- 
machus. 

Should  the  dogmatists  turn  upon  the  sceptic 
and  charge  him  with  choosing  and  avoiding,  in 
general  with  not  practising  his  boasted  suspense 
of  judgment,  the  sceptic  will  reply  that  they  do 
not  understand  the  distinction  between  a  meta¬ 
physically  determined  goal,  for  which  if  he 
waited  he  would  never  act  at  all,  and  a  philo¬ 
sophical  observation  of  phenomena,  whereby  he 
has  a  perfect  right  to  choose  this  and  avoid  that 
among  the  actual  experiences  of  life.  As  the 
sceptic  did  not  see  himself  debarred  from  the 
practice  of  legitimate  science,  but  refused  to  go 
with  the  scientists  into  their  abstract  definitions, 
and  so  on  to  their  absolute  theories  of  the  world ; 
so,  in  the  exigencies  of  daily  business,  he  is  not 
shut  out  from  adopting  a  rule  of  conduct  sug¬ 
gested  by  appearances,  while  rejecting  every 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


350 

absolute  definition  of  Good,  whether  it  lead  to 
the  Epicurean’s  frantic  flight  from  pain  or  to 
the  Stoic’s  pitiless  affirmation  of  optimism.  He 
thinks  he  has  found  the  pleasant  home  where 
Tranquillity  resides ;  but  his  mistress  is  not  the 
ataraxy  of  Epicurus  or  the  apathy  of  Zeno  (the 
words  he  uses,  but  divests  them  of  their  meta¬ 
physical  associations) .  On  the  contrary,  he  sees 
that  these  fixed  principles  not  only  lead  to  log¬ 
ical  absurdities  but  defeat  themselves  practic¬ 
ally  ;  since  the  moment  a  man  sets  up  an  absolute 
ataraxy  or  an  absolute  apathy  as  the  goal  of  a 
rational  hedonism  or  optimism,  he  adds  an  un¬ 
necessary  anxiety  to  life  by  aiming  at  what  he 
can  never  attain.  Rather,  the  Pyrrhonist  takes 
to  heart  the  story  told  of  Apelles,  who,  painting 
a  horse  and  finding  it  difficult  to  reproduce  the 
foam,  finally  in  a  temper  threw  his  sponge  at  the 
picture,  and  lo !  there  was  the  effect  he  had  been 
striving  for.  So,  Sextus  said,  the  sceptic,  look¬ 
ing  about  for  a  philosophy  in  which  his  mind 
could  repose,  found  himself  balked  at  every  step 
by  the  disagreement  of  the  sects;  thus  he  was 
forced  to  hold  his  judgment  in  suspense,  when, 
lo !  by  good  chance  the  tranquillity  he  was  seek¬ 
ing  followed  as  the  shadow  a  body. 


SCEPTICISM 


35i 


VII 

I  cannot  see  that  the  logic  of  Sextus  has  left 
anything  essential  to  be  added  by  the  sceptics  of 
a  later  age.  Doubtless  Kant,  to  take  the  great¬ 
est  of  the  moderns,  has  thrown  the  arguments 
of  the  ancient  school  into  a  new  and  imposing 
scheme,  and  has  given  them  a  different  psycho¬ 
logical  slant;  but  so  far  as  Kant’s  philosophy 
remains  truly  “critical,”  it  seems  to  me  to  move 
within  the  circle  prescribed  by  his  predecessors 
in  the  Greek  Tradition.  Both  Sextus  and  Kant 
show,  and  for  reasons  of  the  same  character, 
that  our  perceptions  are  confined  to  appear¬ 
ances  and  tell  us  nothing  of  things  as  they  are 
ultimately  in  themselves.  Both  show  that  we 
are  obliged  to  use  time  and  space  in  our  percep¬ 
tion  of  phenomena,  but  can  neither  define  the 
nature  of  time  and  space  nor  employ  them  to  de¬ 
fine  the  nature  of  that  which  we  perceive  by 
their  means.  If  anything  Sextus  is  here  more 
thorough  than  Kant,  in  his  insistence  on  the  dif¬ 
ficulties  which  beset  the  mind,  owing  to  the  fact 
that  any  attempt  to  analyse  our  sensations  in 
the  terms  of  time  and  space  obliges  us  to  express 
the  relations  of  time  in  the  incompatible  rela¬ 
tions  of  space,  and  vice  versa . 


352 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


Again,  Sextus  deals  critically  with  what  Kant 
calls  the  Ideas  of  Reason — the  soul,  the  Cos¬ 
mos,  God — and  with  the  same  destructive  re¬ 
sults.  Of  any  guide  or  superior  principle  of  the 
soul  distinguishing  man  from  the  beasts  we  have, 
according  to  Sextus,  no  certain  knowledge ;  in¬ 
deed  of  the  soul  itself  we  can  make  no  affirma¬ 
tion,  since  to  some  reason  proves  its  existence 
and  to  others  its  non-existence,  and,  having  no 
higher  court  of  appeal,  a  wise  man  will  hold  his 
judgment  in  suspense.  And  so  it  is  of  the  Cos¬ 
mos  as  an  orderly,  rational  whole;  between  those 
who  reason  that  all  is  chance  and  those  who  rea¬ 
son  that  all  is  design,  in  our  ignorance  of  the  na¬ 
ture  or  existence  of  causality,  what  resting- 
place  is  there  for  the  critical  mind?  And  so,  also, 
it  is  with  the  being  or  not-being  of  God.  I  can¬ 
not  see  how  in  any  of  these  cases  the  famous  an¬ 
tinomies  of  Kant  have  added  anything  of  sig¬ 
nificance  to  the  isostheneia  of  Sextus;  indeed, 
for  scope  and  thoroughness,  though  not  in  sche¬ 
matic  clarity,  I  submit  that  the  palm  belongs 
rather  to  the  ancient  champion  against  the  dog¬ 
matists. 

The  break  between  the  ancient  and  the  mod¬ 
ern  comes  when  we  pass  from  Pure  Reason, 
where  Kant,  remaining  true  to  his  “critical” 


SCEPTICISM 


353 

creed,  is  at  one  with  Sextus,  to  the  Practical 
Reason,  where  he  ceases  to  be  critical.  It  is  true 
that  Sextus  also,  after  a  fashion,  used  the  Ideas 
of  Reason  pragmatically  as  necessary  assump¬ 
tions.  Thus  he  introduces  his  discussion  of  the  be¬ 
ing  of  the  gods  in  the  Hypoty poses  with  the  state¬ 
ment  that,  so  far  as  the  practice  of  life  goes,  the 
sceptic  will  accept  the  common  belief  and  will 
act  as  if  the  gods  existed  and  exercised  a  provi¬ 
dence  over  the  world ;  but  he  will  do  this  adoccas- 
tos ,  that  is  to  say,  without  permitting  his  prac¬ 
tical  conformity  to  prejudice  his  judgment  of 
the  fact.  Least  of  all  will  he,  in  a  panic  of  fear, 
suddenly  throw  overboard  his  whole  critical 
method,  and  rationalize  this  practical  conform¬ 
ity  into  a  “categorical  imperative”  which  com¬ 
mands  him  to  give  an  unselecting  assent  to  the 
universe  as  a  whole.  He  will  remain  a  consist¬ 
ent  sceptic,  and  will  not,  like  the  Kantian  of  to¬ 
day  or  like  the  last  beaten  leaders  of  the  Acad¬ 
emy,  try  to  speak  as  a  sceptic  and  a  Stoic  in  one 
and  the  same  breath. 

Nor  can  I  see  that  the  logic  of  Sextus  has  left 
open  any  loophole  of  attack  for  the  enraged 
dogmatists.  One  objection,  however,  to  his  con¬ 
clusions  has  been  raised  so  often  and  stated  so 
complacently,  that  it  cannot  be  passed  over  with- 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


354 

out  mention.  It  was  thrown  against  the  Pyrrho- 
nists  and  Academics  of  antiquity  time  after 
time;  St.  Augustine  reechoed  it  in  his  Contra 
Academicos  as  if  it  were  unanswered  and  un¬ 
answerable;  it  is  repeated  by  some  of  the  his¬ 
torians  today  with  the  same  assurance  of  final¬ 
ity.  In  a  word  the  argument  asserts  that  sceptic¬ 
ism  is  self-destructive:  that  is  to  say,  the  very 
use  of  reason  to  prove  the  invalidity  of  reason 
assumes  that  the  process  of  reasoning  is  valid, 
and  the  conclusion  that  we  know  nothing  is  it¬ 
self  an  assertion  of  knowledge.  Or,  as  Mr.  Mac- 
coil  expresses  the  criticism:  “The  sceptics  do 
not  appear  to  have  seen  that  their  supposed  dis¬ 
proof  of  reasonings,  if  valid,  disproved  their  own 
reasonings,  if,  indeed,  we  can  allow  those  who  did 
not  allow  of  proof  to  talk  of  disproof.”24  Now  to 
say  that  the  sceptics  were  unaware  of  this  sort 
of  objection  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  an  extra¬ 
ordinary  misstatement.  It  was  flung  in  their 
teeth,  so  to  speak,  by  every  passer-by,  and  Sex¬ 
tus,  not  to  mention  his  predecessors,  has  it  con¬ 
stantly  in  mind.  There  would  be  more  truth 
in  the  statement  that  the  sceptic’s  replies  to  it 

s^Norman  Maccoll,  The  Greek  Sceptics  100. — In  the  issue  of  Mind 
for  July,  1894,  there  is  an  excellent  criticism  by  Alfred  Sidgwick 
of  Professor  Bradley’s  Appearance  and  Reality,  dealing  clearly 
and  vigorously  with  the  attempt  of  modern  idealism  to  resusci¬ 
tate  this  ancient  charge  against  the  futility  of  scepticism. 


SCEPTICISM 


355 

were  too  frequent  and  were  not  always  wise. 
More  than  once,  after  a  destructive  train  of  rea¬ 
soning,  Sextus  pulls  himself  up  at  the  end  with 
a  kind  of  apologetic  defence,  to  the  effect  that 
he  is  neither  proving  nor  disproving,  but  holds 
his  judgment  in  suspense.  Such  an  apology  is 
not  quite  candid,  and  is  certainly  a  strategical 
mistake.  Indeed,  both  the  attack  and  the  defence 
are  no  better  than  a  quibbling  evasion.  On  the 
one  hand,  to  prove  by  good  logic  that  we  have 
no  criterion  of  knowledge,  and  then  to  add  that 
this  is  not  to  assert  the  non-existence  of  a  cri¬ 
terion  but  only  to  use,  ad  captandum ,  such 
methods  as  will  convince  the  dogmatist— that, 
I  say,  is  a  feeble  trick  of  evasion,  unworthy  of  a 
child  of  Pyrrho.25  The  sceptic’s  position  is  strong¬ 
er  than  that.  To  employ  reason  in  such  a  way  as 
to  show  that  it  is  self -destructive  as  an  instru¬ 
ment  for  defining  the  ultimate  nature  of  things, 
is  not  to  assume  the  validity  of  reason  in  any 
sense  of  the  word  under  discussion ;  to  conclude 
thereby  that  we  know  nothing  beyond  our  im¬ 
mediate  affections  is  utterly  different  from  con¬ 
cluding  that  we  do  know  something  beyond 
these  affections,  and  leaves  the  sceptic  and  the 
dogmatist  at  opposite  poles  of  philosophy.  To 

zzlly'poty'poses  II,  79. 


356  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

retort  that  the  affirmation  of  ignorance  still  im¬ 
plies  the  holding  of  dogma,  is  a  quibble  which,  if 
it  brings  satisfaction  to  any  hungry  dogmatist, 
let  him,  o'  God’s  name,  make  the  best  of  it.26 


VIII 

At  this  point  I  would  ask  the  reader  to  refer 
back  to  the  diagram  on  page  330.  It  has  been 
made  clear,  I  trust,  how  a  genuine  scepticism  is 
consistent  in  admitting  a  philosophy  ( as  I  limit 
the  word)  of  science  and  conduct,  while  reject¬ 
ing  the  metaphysical  extension  of  this  philoso¬ 
phy  in  any  direction.  But  it  will  be  seen  by  the 
diagram  that  I  also  classify  among  the  sceptics 
those  who  accept  a  whole  range  of  philosophy 
which  the  Pyrrhonist  excludes,  and  which  I  des¬ 
ignate  as  spiritual.  Something  has  been  said 
about  the  connexion  of  Pyrrhonism  and  the 
Middle  Academy;  the  last  topic,  and  the  most 
important  for  our  purpose,  will  be  concerned 
with  the  true  children  of  Plato. 

In  the  introductory  chapter  of  my  Platonism 
the  three  main  theses  of  the  Socratic  teaching 
were  stated  as  scepticism,  a  spiritual  affirma¬ 
tion,  and  the  identity  of  virtue  and  knowledge, 

26See  Appendix  D. 


SCEPTICISM 


357 

the  third  of  these  propositions  being  capable  of 
a  double  interpretation,  one  of  which  easily 
glides  into  rationalism.  Now  the  affiliation  of 
the  Hellenistic  philosophies  may  be  indicated 
by  saying  that  the  Epicurean  and  the  Stoic  fol¬ 
lowed  the  rationalizing  tendency  of  the  third 
thesis  taken  alone  (not  forgetting,  however,  the 
ambiguity  of  the  Stoic  position) ,  that  the  Neo- 
platonist  rationalized  the  spiritual  affirmation, 
and  that  the  Pyrrhonist  clung  to  the  scepticism 
and  rejected  the  other  two  theses.  In  such  a 
sense  these  schools  may  be  grouped  as  imper¬ 
fectly  Socratic  and  as  the  heresies  of  philoso¬ 
phy,  whereas  Plato  alone  developed  the  full 
doctrine  of  the  master  by  uniting  the  three 
theses  into  one  harmonious  system  of  thought.27 
How  Plato  accomplished  his  great  task  I  have 
tried  to  set  forth  in  the  two  previous  volumes  of 
this  series ;  but  of  the  part  played  by  scepticism 
in  his  philosophy  not  much  was  there  said,  and 
indeed  could  not  very  well  be  said  until  after 
the  works  of  Sextus  had  been  considered. 

That  Socrates  did  actually  in  his  own  mind 
effect  a  union  of  scepticism  and  spiritual  affir¬ 
mation  is  shown  by  the  quotation  from  the 
Apology  given  at  the  opening  of  this  chapter. 


27See  Appendix  B. 


358  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

That  there  was  also  a  strong  vein  of  interroga¬ 
tion  and  doubt  running  beside  the  Platonic 
Idealism  must  be  clear  enough  to  any  one  who 
has  read  the  Dialogues.  It  was  thus  no  accident 
that  the  leaders  of  the  Academy  at  an  early  date 
beat  the  Pyrrhonists  at  their  own  game,  and  be¬ 
came  for  many  years  the  representative  spokes¬ 
men  of  scepticism.  The  customary  “it  is  likely” 
( ethos )  of  Plato’s  speculations  needed  only  a 
shift  of  emphasis,  an  extension  of  scope,  to  pass 
into  the  “it  is  probable”  ( pithanon )  of  the  Mid¬ 
dle  Academy,  and  the  thing  was  done.  When 
Pyrrhonism  revived,  the  Dialogues  were  still  a 
reservoir  of  anti-dogmatie  arguments  on  which 
the  sceptic  could  draw,  as  may  be  seen  by  the 
large  use  of  them  in  Sextus.28  It  is  true,  of 
course,  that  the  sceptical  thesis  of  the  Dialogues, 
written  before  Pyrrho  was  born,  is  implicit  rath¬ 
er  than  fully  developed,  so  that  our  discussion 
may  seem  more  pertinent  to  a  certain  kind  of 
Platonist  than  to  Plato  himself ;  hut,  with  this 
granted,  what  is  the  relation  of  the  Platonic 
scepticism  to  the  Pyrrhonic?  how  can  it  be  main¬ 
tained  along  with  a  spiritual  affirmation  ?  is  it  a 
true  scepticism  at  all?  Three  questions  which  are 

28E.g.}  the  use  made  of  Meno  80d  and  Theaetetus  147b,  165b 
in  Adv.  Math.  I,  33;  Theaetetus  204  in  I,  135;  Ion  passim  in  I, 
300;  Sophist  233a  in  I,  300;  Timaeus  35a  in  I,  301. 


SCEPTICISM 


359 

really  one :  they  touch  the  Christian  faith  as  well 
as  the  Platonic  philosophy;  and  they  must  be 
met  and  answered  by  any  believer  who,  having 
freed  himself  from  the  fetters  of  rationalism, 
desires  a  larger  world  for  his  liberty  than  can 
be  seen  by  the  eyes  of  the  flesh. 

Now  the  very  essence  of  scepticism  is  the  ad¬ 
mission  that  our  knowledge  is  limited  to  those 
immediate  affections  about  which  there  is  no 
dispute  and  can  be  no  doubt.  So  far  the  Pyrrho- 
nist  and  the  Platonist  and  the  follower  of  any 
other  philosophy  must  agree,  if  they  lay  claim 
to  the  sceptic’s  liberty  of  reasonableness.  The 
issue  will  arise  between  the  Pyrrhonist  and  the 
Platonist  over  the  scope  of  these  immediate  af¬ 
fections.  Both,  as  maybe  seen  by  looking  back  at 
our  diagram,  will  admit  the  reality  of  what  is 
there  designated  as  the  physical  affections — 
pleasure  and  pain,  and  all  those  sensations  and 
perceptions  which  are  connected  with  the  body 
and  the  world  of  material  phenomena.  But  the 
Platonist  asserts  that  he  lives  also  in  a  whole 
range  of  affections,  equally  immediate  and  cer¬ 
tain,  which  are  not  material  in  their  origin,  and 
which  belong  to  a  sub  j  ective  and  ob  j  ective  world 
of  another  order. 

The  character  of  these  spiritual  affections,  as 


360  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

they  may  be  termed  for  lack  of  a  better  word,  I 
need  not  here  dwell  upon.  They  are  comprised 
under  what,  in  the  previous  volume  of  this  ser¬ 
ies,29  I  have  denominated  the  philosophy  of  Pla¬ 
to  as  distinguished  from  the  two  other  elements, 
theology  and  mythology,  which  enter  into  his 
religion ;  and  I  have  there,  to  the  best  of  my  abil¬ 
ity,  analysed  and  described  them.  Briefly  stated, 
they  come  down  to  a  recognition  of  something 
called  the  soul  as  an  independent  entity  apart 
from  the  body,  and  of  those  immediate  facts  of 
consciousness  which  belong  to  the  soul  as  a  mor¬ 
al,  self-determining  agent.  Against  these  claims 
the  Pyrrhonist  opposes  a  virtual  negative;  he 
does  not  indeed  directly  and  positively  deny  the 
existence  of  the  soul  and  its  moral  experience, 
but,  theoretically,  he  holds  his  judgment  in  sus¬ 
pense  regarding  them,  and,  practically,  he  ig¬ 
nores  them  by  basing  his  rule  of  life  on  the  phys¬ 
ical  affections  alone.  Beyond  these  there  is  for 
him  nothing  to  consider  save  the  shifting  cus¬ 
toms  of  society  which  have  no  obligation  other 
than  what  men  choose  for  the  time  to  attribute 
to  them.  In  this  sense  the  Pyrrhonist  is  an  ag¬ 
nostic,  and  the  agnostic,  whether  ancient  or  mod¬ 
ern,  has  always  been  a  more  or  less  disguised  ma¬ 
terialist. 

29Particularly  The  Religion  of  Plato,  chap.  iii. 


SCEPTICISM 


361 

Who  is  right,  the  PyrrhonistorthePlatonist? 
Judged  by  the  canon  of  isostheneia ,  the  Pyrrho- 
nist  would  appear  to  be  your  only  genuine  scep¬ 
tic,  since  it  is  an  open  fact,  so  at  least  he  avers 
with  plausible  assurance,  that,  whereas  all  men 
agree  upon  the  existence  of  physical  affections, 
there  is  no  such  agreement  upon  the  existence 
of  the  spiritual  affections,  and  it  is  presumptu¬ 
ous  to  affirm  knowledge  where  contradictory 
opinions  prevail.  This  was  the  question  that 
Plato  faced  in  the  Gorgias ,  when  to  Socrates’ 
unflinching  announcement  of  the  spiritual  af¬ 
fections  Polus  replied  that  his  language  was 
highly  paradoxical  and  would  be  generally  ridi¬ 
culed  by  his  countrymen.  And  Socrates  admits 
the  paradox.  It  is  a  fact,  he  says,  that  you  can 
bring  a  host  of  witnesses  who  will  swear  that 
they  have  no  belief  in  these  things  which  I  af¬ 
firm;  but  I,  he  adds,  though  I  be  alone  in  my 
conviction,  will  not  assent  to  their  views,  nor 
can  you  force  me  to  assent,  for  all  the  evidence 
you  bring  to  dislodge  me  from  the  truth.  And 
what  is  this  clamour  of  the  mob  to  us  ?  Here  we 
are,  you  alone  and  I  alone,  debating  together  on 
this  great  concern  of  the  soul ;  and  I  think  only 
this  will  satisfy  you,  to  convince  me,  as  I  am  sure 
that  all  I  desire  is  the  honest  confession  of  what 


362  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

you,  and  no  other,  have  felt  and  do  know.  For 
the  rest  of  the  world,  what  is  it  to  you  and  to  me 
how  they  believe  ? 

Such  an  argument  from  individual  conscious¬ 
ness  might  seem  to  be  a  sufficient  answer  to  the 
cavilling  of  the  Pyrrhonist ;  for,  after  all,  logic¬ 
al  demonstration  ceases,  and  personal  appeal 
begins,  when  we  come  down  to  the  rock  bottom 
of  first  premises.  Have  I,  or  have  I  not,  this 
particular  affection?  But  even  here  an  honest 
man  may  well  be  shaken  in  his  conviction  if  he 
finds  himself  solitary  or  with  a  loud  majority 
against  him.  He  will  ask  himself  whether  he  does 
really  feel  what  his  words  imply,  whether  he  may 
not  have  been  deluded  in  holding  this  affection, 
however  vivid,  as  in  very  truth  of  a  spiritual  or¬ 
der.  And  so  Socrates  does  not  rest  with  the  per¬ 
sonal  argument,  but  proceeds  to  show  that  all 
men,  by  the  intuitive  meanings  they  put  into 
language  and  by  the  involuntary  voice  of  con¬ 
science,  do  in  their  hearts  know  these  spiritual 
experiences  which  in  their  lighter  moments  they 
deny.30 

If  Socrates  and  Plato  are  right,  the  case 
would  stand  something  like  this.  The  spiritual 
affections  are  immediate  and  universal,  just  as 

soThis  is  the  truth,  I  think,  veiled  in  the  famous  saying  of  Hera¬ 
clitus  113  Diels),  'ji'Vvbv  iari  7 rdairb  (ppovteiv. 


SCEPTICISM 


363 

are  the  physical  affections ;  all  men  alike  live  in 
these  two  distinct  orders  of  experience.  But,  in 
comparison  with  the  coarser  sensations  of  the 
body  and  the  train  of  emotions  they  awaken,  the 
sense  of  things  spiritual  in  the  natural  man  is 
evanescent  and  elusive,  coming  and  going  with 
a  kind  of  shy  reticence.31  And  so  it  is  that  rea¬ 
son,  which  is  always  in  a  state  of  rebellion  against 
any  irreconcilable  dualism,  begins  to  argue  with¬ 
in  us  that  these  finer  sensations  are  not  so  much 
elusive  as  illusory,  being  in  fact  not  of  a  separate 
order  from  things  physical,  as  they  claim  to  be, 
but  material  in  their  origin  like  all  our  other  af¬ 
fections.  And  in  this  monistic  argument  reason 
is  abetted  by  the  strength  of  our  natural  desires, 
which  are  uneasy  under  any  abridgement  of 
their  validity.  Against  this  tendency  of  ration¬ 
alism  the  Platonist  will  contend  that  he,  and  not 
the  follower  of  Pyrrho,  is  the  complete  sceptic, 
since  he  accepts  the  whole  range  of  our  imme¬ 
diate  affections,  whereas  the  Pyrrhonist  is  but 
an  imperfect  sceptic,  in  so  far  as  he  suffers  rea¬ 
son  to  tyrannize  dogmatically  over  one-half  his 
consciousness. 

However  that  may  be,  and  whether  the  Pla- 

siCardinal  Newman  has  dwelt  on  this  fact  with  the  conviction  of 
a  priest  and  the  eloquence  of  a  poet.  See,  for  example,  the  pas¬ 
sage  quoted  in  The  Religion  of  Plato ,  Appendix  C. 


364  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

tonist  is  right  or  not  in  assuming  a  dualism  of 
affections,  it  is  a  fact  that  he  is  able  to  carry  the 
sceptical  attitude  into  the  spiritual  realm,  grant¬ 
ed  the  existence  of  that  realm,  in  a  manner  that 
runs  quite  parallel  with  his  and  the  Pyrrhonist’s 
attitude  in  the  physical  realm.  Thus,  if  the  read¬ 
er  will  cast  his  eye  down  the  column  headed  phi¬ 
losophy  in  the  diagram,  he  will  see  that  the  doc¬ 
trine  of  Ideas  corresponds  to  science  in  the  phys¬ 
ical  order.  In  the  lower  order  of  experience  the 
sceptic  accepts  the  existence  of  a  physical  real¬ 
ity  as  a  fact  given  him  in  his  immediate  affec¬ 
tions  ;  that  is  to  say,  the  sense  of  something  ob¬ 
jective  and  impersonal,  jomething  outside  of 
himself  which  has  the  power  of  affecting  him,  is 
just  as  real  and  immediate  to  him  as  the  sense  of 
colour  or  the  feeling  of  pleasure.  The  very  word 
“affection”  implies  that  something  not  himself 
affects  him,  and  in  his  view  the  position  of  the 
Berkeleyan  idealist  and,  a  fortiori ,  of  the  solip¬ 
sist  is  not  sceptical  at  all  but  dogmatic  and  meta¬ 
physical  to  the  last  degree.32  And  so  in  the  high- 

32Thus  phenomena,  the  sense  of  something  appearing  to  us,  are 
identical  with  immediate  affections  as  ra  Kara  cpavraalav  tt ad-rjn- 
kt]v  VToirLirrovra  [Hyp.  II,  10),  a[3ov\riT  us  [A  dv.  Hath.  VIII,  316), 
r&  Kara  (pavraalav  Kar  n)v  ay  Kaa  p£va  iradr]  [Hyp.  I,  13), ra  il '■  eavr uv  els 
yvucnv  rj/uitv  ipx6/J.eva  [Hyp.  II,  97),  etc.  The  Pyrrhonist  would  ac¬ 
count  it  a  metaphysical  absurdity  to  argue  that  pain  is  not  an 
affection  produced  by  something  outside  of  ourselves,  or  that 
our  sense  of  the  body  is  not  of  something  objective  and  im¬ 
personal. 


SCEPTICISM  365 

er  order  the  Platonist  holds  that  it  is  not  the 
function  of  scepticism,  but  of  a  perverted  ration¬ 
alism,  to  deny  the  existence  of  a  world  of  objec¬ 
tive  reality  underly  ing  and  shaping  his  spiritual 
affections.  The  forces  of  this  immaterial  world, 
with  which  in  some  way  he  is  in  contact,  are  sim¬ 
ply  in  his  vocabulary  the  Ideas.  The  Platonist 
perceives  further  in  the  realm  of  spiritual  phe¬ 
nomena  a  relation  of  simultaneity  and  succes¬ 
sion  which  gives  him  the  two  categories  of  the 
“uniformities  of  coexistence”  and  the  “uniform¬ 
ities  of  causation,”  precisely  as  he  finds  them  in 
the  realm  of  physical  phenomena.  So  far  as  his 
experience  goes  he  sees  that  certain  laws  pre¬ 
vail  here  as  they  do  in  mechanics,  that  certain 
consequences  invariably  attend  certain  moral 
acts  or  states ;  so  that  a  fair  and  adequate  defini¬ 
tion  of  the  doctrine  of  Ideas  would  be  “the  sci¬ 
ence  of  the  spirit.”  He  thinks  that  his  experi¬ 
ence  here  is  even  more  exact  and  cogent  than  his 
experience  of  physical  law,  for  the  reason  that  it 
comes  down  to  the  centre  of  his  being ;  and  hence, 
in  comparison  with  the  science  of  the  spirit,  he 
is  inclined  to  regard  the  so-called  science  of 
physical  phenomena  as  a  mere  body  of  relative¬ 
ly  unstable  opinions.  To  permit  the  insistence 
of  physical  phenomena  to  obscure  the  reality  of 


366  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

the  soul  and  the  Ideal  world  is  to  the  Platonist 
the  last  illusion  of  wilful  ignorance,  and  he  who 
lives  in  such  a  state  is  as  a  man  walking  in  his 
sleep.33 

Again  following  down  the  column  under  phi¬ 
losophy  in  the  diagram  we  see  that  correspond¬ 
ing  with  the  ataraxy  of  the  Pyrrhonist  stands 
the  Platonic  eudaemonism.  Here,  in  obedience 
to  the  radical  dualism  of  his  experience,  the  Pla¬ 
tonist  divides  his  feelings  into  two  distinct  or¬ 
ders  :  pleasure  and  pain  on  the  one  hand,  which 
are  the  result  respectively  of  this  or  that  conduct 
in  the  realm  of  physical  phenomena,  and  which 
he  accepts  with  the  Pyrrhonist ;  and  on  the  other 
hand  happiness  ( eudaimonia )  and  misery,  which 
accompany  our  spiritual  volitions,  and  which 
the  Pyrrhonist  rejects,  or  at  least  refuses  to 
separate  in  kind  from  pleasure  and  pain.  In 
the  higher  order  the  Platonist  finds  his  goal  in 
that  immediate  sense  of  happiness  which  comes 
with  a  life  governed  in  conformity  with  the  phi¬ 
losophy  of  Ideas,  as  at  once  the  effect  and  con¬ 
firmation  of  spiritual  knowledge.  Eudaemon¬ 
ism  to  him  is  not  necessarily  antagonistic  to 
ataraxy,  but  supplements  ataraxy  as  the  final 

33lamblichus,  Protrepticus  pp.  68,  69,  79  Pistelli,  has  some  ex¬ 
cellent  observations  on  this  illusion  (a-n-arr)),  drawn  from  the 
Phaedo  and  the  Platonic  Dialogues  generally. 


SCEPTICISM 


367 

rule  of  conduct  owing  to  its  vastly  greater  sig¬ 
nificance  and  cogency  in  the  fulness  of  life.  By 
virtue  of  his  complete  scepticism  he  has  attained 
to  a  peace  in  the  soul  incomparably  more  pre¬ 
cious  than  the  bare  imperturbability  of  mind 
boasted,  but  in  fact  rarely,  if  ever,  possessed, 
by  the  Pyrrhonic  half-sceptic. 

To  this  point  the  philosophy  of  scepticism 
goes,  and  here  it  stops.  The  sceptic  of  any  sort 
must  rest  in  the  impossibility  of  defining  in  ra¬ 
tional  terms  the  nature  of  that  objective  reality 
which  lies  behind  material  phenomena  and  which 
he  accepts  as  a  given  fact.  So  it  is  with  Ideas. 
Of  their  nature  in  themselves,  how  they  exist, 
where  they  dwell,  if  indeed  the  word  “where” 
may  be  applied  to  them  at  all,  and  in  what  man¬ 
ner  they  operate, — of  this,  if  he  is  wise,  the  Pla- 
tonist  will  profess  ignorance.  Plato  himself  in¬ 
sisted  on  describing  Ideas  as  separate  ( chorista ) 
from  material  phenomena,  yet  as  in  some  way 
capable  of  affecting  these  phenomena  by  “par¬ 
ticipation”  or  “imitation”;  and  it  may  be  that 
at  times  he  was  led  on,  by  a  very  human  impulse, 
to  play  with  rational  definitions  of  their  nature 
which  should  explain  this  paradox  of  separa¬ 
tion  and  participation ;  but  such  attempts  were 
abortive  to  say  the  least,  and  in  the  main,  and 


368  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

when  true  to  himself,  he  left  to  the  spiritual  im¬ 
agination  a  field  wherein  reason  finds  herself 
hopelessly  baffled.  But  for  the  existence  of  Ideas, 
that  was  a  matter  the  truth  of  which  was  not  de¬ 
pendent  on  logical  deduction  or  poetical  imagi¬ 
nation,  but  was  given  in  the  immediate  con¬ 
sciousness  of  all  men,  however  denied  by  some. 
Certainly  in  the  end,  if  my  interpretation  of  the 
Parmenides  and  the  Sophist  is  correct,34  he  de¬ 
nied  emphatically  the  right  to  translate  the  doc¬ 
trine  of  Ideas  into  a  transcendental  monism  cor¬ 
responding  in  the  spiritual  realm  to  the  meta¬ 
physics  of  Epicurus  and  Zeno  in  the  physical 
realm.  How  far  such  a  transcendental  monism 
strays  from  the  true  philosophy  of  Plato  I  have 
tried  to  show  in  the  chapter  on  Plotinus. 

And  the  same  limitation  will  be  respected  in 
the  volitional  and  emotional  sphere  of  philoso¬ 
phy.  As  the  Pyrrhonist  refrains  from  extend¬ 
ing  his  ataraxy  to  the  absolutes  of  hedonism  or 
optimism,  so  the  Platonist  will  refuse  to  carry 
his  eudaemonism  on  into  an  absolute  antinomi- 
anism  or  an  absolute  asceticism.  Happiness,  as 
he  knows  it,  may  be  different  in  kind  from  pleas¬ 
ure,  and  may  pertain  to  the  soul  alone  as  dis¬ 
tinct  from  the  body ;  he  will  not  therefore  allow 


34See  Platonism  chap.  viii. 


SCEPTICISM 


369 

his  pursuit  of  happiness  to  merge  into  the  anti- 
nomian’s  indifference  to  life  in  the  flesh  as  a 
matter  of  no  concern  to  the  soul,  nor  into  the 
ascetic’s  condemnation  of  the  flesh  as  something 
utterly  hostile  to  the  soul  and  so  to  be  ruthlessly 
crushed  down  and  silenced.  Both  antinomian- 
ism  and  asceticism  he  will  regard  as  illegitimate 
extensions  of  a  dualistic  philosophy  into  meta¬ 
physics  ;  there  are  no  rational  absolutes  for  the 
sceptic.35 

So  far  I  have  endeavoured  to  show  how  the 
philosophy  of  Plato  embraces  both  scepticism 
and  the  spiritual  affirmation,  and  how  by  virtue 
of  this  inclusiveness  it  proves  itself  more  thor¬ 
oughly  positive  than  the  materialistic  exclusive¬ 
ness  of  Pyrrho.  For  the  relation  of  theology  and 
mythology  to  philosophy  in  such  a  scheme  I  must 
refer  the  reader  to  the  appropriate  chapters  in 
my  Religion  of  Plato.  The  problem  of  philoso¬ 
phy  is  to  ascertain  what  spiritual  knowledge  is 
consistent  with  a  legitimate  enlargement  of  Pyr- 
rhonic  scepticism;  with  theology  and  mythol¬ 
ogy,  so  far  as  we  remain  true  to  our  Platonism, 
we  pass  from  the  assurance  of  knowledge  to  that 
land  of  varying  probability  which  was  discov¬ 
ered,  but  never  occupied,  by  the  great  explorers 


ssSee  Appendix  E. 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


370 

of  the  Middle  Academy.  If  there  is  any  escape 
from  the  restrictions  of  probability  in  the  relig¬ 
ious  sphere  of  theology  and  mythology,  it  can¬ 
not  be  achieved  by  the  guidance  of  unassisted 
reason,  but  must  wait  on  a  revelation  which 
comes  with  its  own  authority  of  immediate  con¬ 
viction.  Such  a  revelation  the  Christian  theo¬ 
logian  found  in  the  life  and  words  of  the  historic 
Jesus,  and  this  belief  will  be  the  theme  of  our 
next  two  volumes  in  the  Greek  Tradition. 


THE  END 


APPENDIX  A 


Lactantius  (Arnim,  Stoic.  Vet.  Frag.  II,  1041)  has 
a  clear  statement  of  the  confusion  of  monism  and  dual¬ 
ism  in  the  Stoic  system,  resting  finally  on  their  as¬ 
sumption  of  active  and  passive  as  merely  two  aspects 
of  an  ultimate  unity,  which  thus  becomes  God  or  mat¬ 
ter,  energy  or  mass,  as  the  argument  demands.  It  is 
fair  to  add  that  in  this  slippery  use  of  active  and  pas¬ 
sive,  perhaps  the  fundamental  fallacy  of  their  whole 
metaphysics,  the  Stoics  were  victims  of  an  inherent 
trait  of  the  Greek  language.  At  another  time  I  have  in 
mind  to  follow  this  peculiarity  from  the  morphological 
ambiguities  of  the  Greek  verb  and  adjective,  through 
its  philosophical  implications  in  the  active  and  pas¬ 
sive  use  of  such  words  as  kukov  and  aya6ov ,  to  its  final 
results  in  the  theological  dogmas  of  faith  and  grace 
and  justification.  There  is,  as  I  see  it,  a  profound 
truth  in  these  philosophical  extensions  of  a  linguistic 
ambiguity,  as  well  as  obvious  dangers.  The  whole  mat¬ 
ter  is  a  striking  illustration  of  the  close  connexion  be¬ 
tween  the  Greek  tongue  and  the  Greek  Tradition. 

As  for  tonos ,  so  far  as  I  can  guess  at  its  meaning,  it 
is  a  further  attempt  to  reduce  mass  and  energy  to  the 
same  terms.  It  is  the  vibratory  tension  in  the  mass  of 
any  object,  energizing  from  the  centre  to  the  periphery 
and  from  the  periphery  to  the  centre.  By  its  inward 


37i 


HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 


372 

thrust  it  gives  unity  and  essence,  cohesion  we  should 
say,  to  an  individual  body;  by  its  outward  thrust  it 
gives  magnitude  and  form  and  the  secondary  qualities. 
So  far  the  definition  leaves  a  radical  distinction  be¬ 
tween  matter  and  energy;  to  escape  this  mechanical 
dualism  tonos  is  then  regarded  as  itself  simply  a  .sub¬ 
tle  kind  of  matter  (ether,  or  warm  air),  which  pene¬ 
trates  a  solid  body  and  acts  upon  its  mass  by  contact 
and  thrust.  But  this  leaves  the  mechanical  operation 
of  contact  and  thrust  still  definable  only  in  terms  of 
energy.  And  so  the  argument  proceeds  in  an  endless 
circle  from  mass  to  energy  and  from  energy  to  mass.  It 
is  not  strange  that  the  ancient  critics  of  the  Stoic 
physics  were  bewildered. 

The  use  of  tonos  was  extended  by  the  Stoics  from 
hexis,  which  is  the  constitution  (including  essence  and 
quality)  of  inorganic  bodies,  to  physis ,  which  is  the 
constitution  of  plants,  to  psyche ,  which  is  the  consti¬ 
tution  of  animals,  and  finally  to  nous  (reason),  which 
is  the  constitution  of  man.  More  generally  expressed, 
tonos,  the  .sustaining  and  constitutive  element  regarded 
from  heads  upwards  to  nous,  becomes  the  logos  of  the 
universe  when  regarded  from  nous  downwards  to 
hexis;  or,  put  the  other  way,  the  logos  becomes  the 
tonos  of  the  universe  when  regarded  from  the  starting 
point  of  our  corporeal  experience.  Logos  and  tonos 
are,  so  to  speak,  the  same  principle  taken  now  in  a 
downward,  now  in  an  upward,  direction. 

Our  knowledge  of  the  Stoic  conception  of  tonos  is 
derived  from  a  few  fragments  (Arnim  II,  439-462), 
largely  the  work  of  hostile  critics,  and  the  whole  sub¬ 
ject  is  avowedly  obscure.  But  one  cannot  read  the  ar- 


APPENDIX  A 


373 

guments  without  surmising  that  the  fundamental  hy¬ 
potheses  of  physics  were  grasped  by  Chrysippus  with 
a  clearer  sense  of  the  metaphysical  problems  involved 
than  is  commonly  shown  by  modern  scientists,  al¬ 
though,  of  course,  without  our  apparatus  of  experi¬ 
mental  facts.  The  relation  between  logos  and  tonos  is, 
I  suspect,  much  the  same  thing  as  the  modern  relation 
between  mathematical  equations  and  physical  opera¬ 
tions,  expressed  by  us  in  terms  more  useful  practic¬ 
ally,  less  suggestive  metaphysically. 

If  any  reader  is  curious  to  follow  the  Stoics  further 
in  their  divagations  regarding  the  materialism,  or  sub¬ 
materialism,  or  whatever  it  may  be  called,  of  qualities 
and  forces  and  relations,  let  him  study  the  fragments 
dealing  with  the  four  categories  of  Chrysippus.  He  is 
likely  to  come  out  with  a  headache  and  nothing  more. 
As  Plutarch  says  (Arnim  II,  380),  ravra  7ro\X^v  eyet 
rapay^r.  Again  one  might  draw  a  curious  and  illuminat¬ 
ing  parallel  between  the  Stoic  definitions  of  void  and 
(TVfxfiePrjKOTa,  as  material  yet  differing  from  ordinary 
matter  by  not  being  subject  to  the  known  laws  of 
mechanics,  and  some  of  the  modern  hypotheses  of 
physics  and  chemistry.  The  Stoic  hypotheses  are  on 
the  whole  more  logical,  but  they  lack  the  audacious 
fancifulness  of  our  scientific  creations. 


APPENDIX  B 


I  have  referred  several  times  to  the  relation  of  Pla¬ 
tonism  and  the  various  Hellenistic  philosophies  to  the 
doctrines  of  Socrates.  For  the  sake  of  obtaining  a 
summary  view  of  the  matter  we  may  set  down  these 
affiliations  in  a  diagram,  remembering,  however,  that 
such  a  schematization  is  of  the  roughest  sort  and  does 
not  pretend  to  completeness  or  exactness. 

The  intellectual  method  of  Socrates  may  be  de¬ 
scribed  as  combining  scepticism  and  the  equation  vir¬ 
tue  =  knowledge.  Owing  to  the  ambiguous  sense  of  the 
word  knowledge,  the  equation,  taken  in  one  way,  leads 
to  a  rationalism,  or  metaphysic,  quite  incompatible 
with  scepticism,  while  taken  in  another  way,  it  leads 
to  reasonableness  and  a  kind  of  intuition  which  consort 
easily  with  scepticism.  This  distinction  I  have  treated 
at  length  in  m j  Platonism.  Passing  on  to  the  data  of  life, 
we  may  say  that  Socrates  applied  his  method  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  obtain  a  calculating  hedonism,  an  op¬ 
timistic  endurance  of  things  as  they  are  (karteria) , 
and  a  spiritual  affirmation.  The  practical  outcome  of 
chis  application  is  the  two  traits  of  character,  liberty 
and  security,  which  together  form  self-sufficiency  ( aw - 
tcirlceia) . 

Now  the  various  schools  dealt  with  in  this  volume 
are  all  imperfectly  Socratic  in  the  sense  that  they  each 


374 


APPENDIX  B  375 

laid  hold  of  certain  of  the  Socratic  theses  to  the  exclu¬ 
sion  of  others,  while  they  all  aimed  at  the  one  common 
end  of  autarkeia.  Manifestly  the  Epicureans  built  their 
philosophy  on  the  rationalism  and  hedonism  of  Socra¬ 
tes,  the  Stoics  on  his  rationalism  and  optimistic  en¬ 
durance,  while  both  excluded  the  scepticism  and,  in 
varying  degrees,  the  spiritual  affirmation.  Plotinus 
takes  the  rationalism  and  the  spiritual  affirmation, 
while  rejecting  the  hedonism  and  at  least  the  optimism 
properly  belonging  to  the  attitude  of  endurance.  The 
Pyrrhonists  accepted  only  the  scepticism  combined 
with  hedonism  and  endurance.  The  affiliation  of  the 
sects  may  then  be  schematized  as  follows  : — 

Epicureanism: rationalism  with  hedonism 
Stoicism :  rationalism  with  optimistic 

endurance 

Neoplatonism: rationalism  with  spiritual 

affirmation 

Pyrrhonism:  scepticism  with  hedonism  and 

endurance 

Platonic  dualism  is  the  true  Socratic  philosophy 
(beside  wdiich  the  various  sects  run  much  as  the  heresies 
run  parallel  with  Christian  orthodoxy)  by  virtue  of 
uniting  the  Socratic  theses  in  one  harmonious  system, 
developing  the  ethical  equation  in  the  direction  of 
reasonableness  and  the  higher  intuition,  while  repu¬ 
diating  a  metaphysical  rationalism.  Together  with 
these  Socratic  traits  Plato  contains  also  hints  of  a  re¬ 
ligious  clement  which  later  will  be  developed  and  made 
dominant  by  Christianity.  The  radical  change  to 
Christianity  will  come  with  the  substitution  of  revela- 
ton  for  autarkeia. 


liberty 

security 


autarkeia 


APPENDIX  C 


Pyrrho  connected  his  doubt  with  one  aspect  of  the 
Democritean  philosophy,  whereas  the  Sophists  were 
rather  followers  of  Heraclitus,  the  difference  being 
pointed  out  succinctly  by  Sextus,  thus  :  “From  the  fact 
that  honey  appears  bitter  to  some  and  sweet  to  others 
Democritus  argued  that  honey  itself  was  neither  sweet 
nor  bitter,  but  Heraclitus  said  that  it  was  both” 
{Hyp.  II,  63).  That  is  to  say,  from  the  isostheneia  of 
our  sensations  the  Pyrrhonist,  taking  a  hint  from  De¬ 
mocritus,  concluded  that  we  have  no  knowledge  of  the 
nature  of  things,  whereas  the  Sophist  from  this  same 
isostheneia  argued  the  knowledge  of  a  like  isostheneia 
in  things  themselves.  Yet,  in  the  very  chapter  in  which 
Sextus  draws  out  his  distinction  between  the  Sceptics 
and  the  Heracliteans,  he  inserts  the  curious  statement 
in  regard  to  Aenesidemus,  the  reviver  of  true  Pyr¬ 
rhonism,  that  “he  said  the  sceptical  school  was  the  way 
to  the  philosophy  of  Heraclitus.”  Here  is  a  crux  to 
which  no  satisfactory  solution  has  ever  been  given, 
which  indeed,  with  the  data  at  our  command,  can  only 
be  answered  conjecturally.  One  may  guess  that  Aene¬ 
sidemus,  being  impressed  by  the  discord  of  our  sensa¬ 
tions  and  opinions,  felt  that  in  some  way  it  must  cor¬ 
respond  with,  or  be  a  part  of,  some  sort  of  instability 
in  the  world  at  large.  Now,  if  we  consider  the  fact  that 

376 


APPENDIX  C 


377 

his  ten  tropes  are  all  summed  up  under  the  one  head 
of  relativity,  and  the  further  fact  that  he  seems  to 
have  referred  the  variation  of  our  sensations  and  opin¬ 
ions  to  the  flowing  character  of  time  as  the  corporeal 
essence,  so  to  speak,  of  all  things  {Hyp.  Ill,  138),  we 
can  understand  how  he  was  led,  tentatively  at  least, 
into  the  camp  of  Pleraclitus ;  for  the  universal  flux  of 
Heraclitus  is  just  the  union  of  relativity  and  time.  But 
we  may  conjecture  also  that  his  theory  remained  with¬ 
in  the  bounds  of  a  vague  correspondence,  and  did  not 
venture  upon  hardening  this  correspondence  into  such 
a  criterion  of  katalepsis  as  underlies  the  position  of  the 
Sophists.  At  any  rate  we  may  be  sure  that  he  would 
have  rejected  the  sophistic  dogmatism  of  a  Thrasy- 
machus,  who  believed  that  by  sheer  exercise  of  will¬ 
power  a  man  could  impose  his  own  desire  as  a  tempor¬ 
ary  canon  of  right  and  truth. 


APPENDIX  D 


It  is  to  me  a  surprising  thing  that  Pyrrhonism  in 
general  and  Sextus  in  particular  have  received  such 
scant  consideration  in  our  day  from  English  commen¬ 
tators.  The  only  translation  we  have  of  Sextus  is 
Miss  Patrick’s  version  of  the  first  book  of  the  Hypo- 
typoses  in  her  Sextus  Empiricus  and  Greek  Sceptic¬ 
ism,  and  unfortunately  her  work  shows  a  very  imper¬ 
fect  acquaintance  with  technical  Greek.  As  an  illustra¬ 
tion  of  the  grudging  spirit  of  the  critics  I  may  cite 
the  comment  on  Sextus  with  which  Mr.  Alfred  Benn 
closes  an  otherwise  acute  study  of  scepticism  in  his 
Greek  Philosophers  (2nd  edition,  p.  470)  : 

“It  will  be  enough  to  notice  the  singular  circum¬ 
stance  that  so  copious  and  careful  an  enumeration  of 
the  grounds  which  it  was  possible  to  urge  against 
dogmatism — included,  as  wc  have  seen,  many  still  em¬ 
ployed  for  the  same  or  other  purposes, — should  have 
omitted  the  two  most  powerful  solvents  of  all.  These 
were  left  for  the  exquisite  critical  acumen  of  Hume  to 
discover.  They  relate  to  the  conception  of  causation, 
and  to  the  conception  of  our  own  personality  as  an 
indivisible,  continuously  existing  substance,  being  at¬ 
tempts  to  show  that  both  involve  assumptions  of  an 
illegitimate  character.  Sextus  comes  up  to  the  very 
verge  of  Plume’s  objection  to  the  former  when  he  ob- 


378 


APPENDIX  D 


379 


serves  that  causation  implies  relation,  which  can  only 
exist  in  thought ;  but  he  does  not  ask  how  we  come  to 
think  such  a  relation,  still  less  does  he  connect  it  with 
the  perception  of  phenomenal  antecedence  (1)  ;  and 
his  attacks  on  the  various  mental  faculties  assumed  by 
psychologists  pass  over  the  fundamental  postulate  of 
personal  identity,  thus  leaving  Descartes  what  seemed 
a  safe  foundation  whereon  to  rebuild  the  edifice  of 
metaphysical  philosophy  (2).” 

Now  (I)  Sextus  does  clearly  enough  imply,  if  he 
does  not  actually  state,  that  our  conception  of  causal¬ 
ity  is  connected  with  the  regularly  perceived  sequences 
of  phenomena  ( Hyp .  Ill,  17,  18;  Adv.  Math.  IX, 
200-203). 

(2)  Descartes  is  fully  forestalled.  If  his  dictum 
Cogito  ergo  sum  has  any  value  as  the  starting  point 
of  a  metaphysical  philosophy,  it  must  mean  this :  “I 
think,  therefore  I  have  knowledge  of  myself  as  a  think¬ 
er,  and  from  that  knowledge  can  deduce  other  know¬ 
ledge.”  But  Sextus  {Adv.  Math.  VII,  310  et  al.)  dem¬ 
onstrates  to  the  hilt  that  the  dianoia,  or  thinking  fac¬ 
ulty,  has  no  means  of  knowing  itself ;  and,  if  this  is  so, 
the  Cartesian  Cogito  is  left  as  a  mere  immediate  affec¬ 
tion  from  which  no  such  deductions  as  he  desired  can 
be  made.  Moreover,  Sextus  argues  more  than  once 
( e.g..  Hyp.  II,  32;  Adv.  Math.  VII,  55)  that  the  soul 
itself  is  unknowable,  and  that  therefore  its  existence 
is  a  matter  of  doubt.  And  soul,  in  his  modest  vocabu¬ 
lary,  is  nothing  less  than  the  fundamental  postulate 
of  personal  identity. 

Mr.  R.  D.  Hicks,  in  his  Stoic  and  Epicurean  (p. 
312),  is  something  more  than  grudging: 


380  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

“The  scepticism  of  antiquity ,”  he  says,  “busied  it¬ 
self  with  the  problem  of  knowledge.  But  when  com¬ 
pared  with  cognate  inquiries  in  modern  philosophy,  it 
appears  in  its  scope  and  range  almost  ludicrously  ten¬ 
tative,  jejune,  and  superficial.  That  the  object  of  cog¬ 
nition  was  external  reality,  nay  more,  that  it  was  ma¬ 
terial  reality,  was  not  in  that  age  seriously  questioned. 
No  one  ever  challenged  the  existence  of  a  real  world  of 
things  lying  behind  the  phenomena  of  which  we  are 
conscious.” 

Now  that  the  arguments  brought  together  by  Sex¬ 
tus  were  neither  jejune  nor  superficial,  I  trust  has  been 
made  evident.  At  least  one  may  say  that  to  character¬ 
ize  the  philosophy  of  Carneades  and  Aenesidemus  as 
ludicrous  is  merely  bad  taste  or  ignorance.  As  for  Mr. 
Hicks’  specific  objections,  they  are  simply  amazing. 
Does  he  mean  to  imply,  in  the  face  of  page  after  page 
and  book  after  book  of  Sextus  on  the  cognition  of  in¬ 
ternal  reality,  that  the  only  object  of  cognition  at¬ 
tacked  by  the  sceptics  was  external  and  material  real¬ 
ity?  And  then,  in  view  of  the  Neoplatonic  theories  of 
hyle  and  the  me  on ,  how  can  he  say  that  “no  one  ever 
challenged  the  existence  of  a  real  world,  etc.”?  As  for 
the  sceptics,  it  was  distinctly  not  their  business  to  de¬ 
termine  what  the  object  of  cognition  is,  but  to  demon¬ 
strate  that  we  have  no  knowledge  of  any  object  (be¬ 
yond  our  immediate  affections)  whether  external  or 
internal.  To  argue  against  the  existence  of  an  exter¬ 
nal  reality,  as  Mr.  Hicks  implies  that  the  sceptic 
should  have  done,  leads  not  to  scepticism  at  all,  but  to 
a  dogmatism  of  the  most  metaphysical  sort,  such  as  we 
see  in  Plotinus  and  Berkeley.  To  arguments  of  the 


APPENDIX  D 


381 

Berkeley  an  sort  Dr.  Johnson’s  retort  by  kicking  a 
stone  was  good  reason  and  good  scepticism.  Johnson 
simply  meant  that  we  have  an  immediate  and  irrefut¬ 
able  affection  of  an  objective  material  world,  different 
in  character  from  personality.  Pyrrho  and  Sextus 
would  have  applauded  his  beau  geste.  But  to  state  that 
we  have  such  an  affection  of  an  impersonal  objective 
world  does  not  imply  that  we  know  what  that  world  is 
positively. 

Mr.  Maccoll,  in  his  study  of  The  Greek  Sceptics ,  is 
more  generous  than  Mr.  PXicks,  but  still  has  his  reser¬ 
vation.  “It  [Pyrrhonism]  disputed  the  possibility  of 
subjective,  as -much  as  of  objective,  truth,”  he  says, 
p.  19,  “and  so  wide  was  its  range,  that,  had  it  not  been 
regarded  only  as  a  speculative  means  to  a  practical 
end,  a  philosophy  that  taught  the  great  secret  of  how 
to  be  happy,  Pyrrhonism  wTould  have  been  very  closely 
akin  to  the  doubt  of  modern  times.”  That  is  scarcely  a 
fair  criticism  and  does  not  correspond  to  the  historic 
fact.  Doubt  was  forced  on  the  Pyrrhonist  by  the  isos- 
theneia  of  the  wrangling  schools ;  he  did  not  doubt  in 
order  to  obtain  happiness,  but  learned  by  experience 
that  a  certain  tranquillity  of  mind  followed  a  with¬ 
drawal  from  the  contest,  and  he  then  justified  his  po¬ 
sition  by  proving  to  his  own  satisfaction  that  all  the 
wrangling  claims  of  rationalism  were  equally  inadmis¬ 
sible.  Mr.  Maccoll  is  nearer  the  fact,  but  still,  I  think, 
in  error,  when  he  says,  p.  100:  “They  only  stopped 
short  when  the  absurdity  of  their  position  was  shown 
by  their  application  of  it  to  practical  life:  but  their 
arbitrary  attempt  to  cut  the  knot  by  admitting  a  cri¬ 
terion  in  practice  and  excluding  it  in  theory  cannot  be 


382  HELLENISTIC  PHILOSOPHIES 

accepted.”  Mr.  Maccoll  is  here  virtually  repeating  the 
well-known  criticism  of  Plume  in  his  Essays  (II,  131, 
Green  and  Grose)  : 

“A  Stoic  or  Epicurean  displays  principles,  which 
may  not  only  be  durable,  but  which  have  an  effect  on 
conduct  and  behaviour.  But  a  Pyrrhonian  cannot  ex¬ 
pect,  that  his  philosophy  will  have  any  constant  influ¬ 
ence  on  the  mind :  or  if  it  had,  that  its  influence  would 
be  beneficial  to  society.  On  the  contrary,  he  must  ac¬ 
knowledge,  if  he  will  acknowledge  anything,  that  all 
human  life  must  perish,  were  his  principles  universally 
and  steadily  to  prevail.  All  discourse,  all  action,  would 
immediately  cease ;  and  men  remain  in  a  total  lethar¬ 
gy,  till  the  necessities  of  nature  unsatisfied,  put  an  end 
to  their  miserable  existence.  It  is  true,  so  fatal  an  event 
is  very  little  to  be  dreaded.  Nature  is  always  too  strong 
for  principle.  And  though  a  Pyrrhonian  may  throw 
himself  or  others  into  a  momentary  amazement  and 
confusion  by  his  profound  reasonings ;  the  first  and 
most  trivial  event  in  life  will  put  to  flight  all  his  doubts 
and  scruples,  and  leave  him  the  same,  in  every  point 
of  action  and  speculation,  with  the  philosophers  of 
every  other  sect,  or  with  those  who  never  concern 
themselves  in  any  philosophical  researches.  When  he 
awakes  from  his  dream,  he  will  be  the  first  to  join  in  the 
laugh  against  himself,  and  to  confess,  that  all  his  ob¬ 
jections  are  mere  amusement,  and  can  have  no  other 
tendency  than  to  show  the  whimsical  condition  of 
mankind,  who  must  act,  and  reason,  and  believe ; 
though  they  are  not  able,  by  their  most  diligent  in¬ 
quiry,  to  satisfy  themselves  concerning  the  founda- 


APPENDIX  D  383 

tion  of  these  operations,  or  to  remove  the  objections, 
which  may  be  raised  against  them.” 

Hume’s  antinomy  between  theory  and  practice  seems 
to  me  to  hold  good  against  scepticism  of  the  Prota- 
gorean  and  Heraclitean  variety  (see  ante  p.  325), 
which  would  reduce  nature  to  a  positive  chaos,  and 
against  which  Plato’s  philosophy  is  directed ;  it  seems 
to  me  to  hold  good  also  against  the  militant  and  dog¬ 
matic  agnosticism  of  the  nineteenth  century.  But  I 
cannot  see  that  the  true  Pyrrhonism  is  under  any  such 
liability.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  logical  and  perfectly 
tenable  position  of  the  Pyrrhonian  is  very  much  like 
that  of  the  man  in  the  street,  as  we  .should  say  today, 
who  accepts  things  as  they  are  without  concerning 
himself  in  philosophical  researches,  unless  he  is  wor¬ 
ried  by  the  missionary  zeal  of  a  reformer.  That  is  pre¬ 
cisely  the  Pyrrhonian  agoge. 

A  good  account  of  Greek  scepticism,  though  it  forces 
the  evidence  for  a  regular  development,  is  Goedecke- 
meyer’s  Geschichte  des  griechischen  Skeptizismus.  The 
most  searching  analysis  and  criticism  of  the  subject 
is  in  Richter’s  Skeptizismus  in  der  Philo sophie.  But 
learned  and  acute  as  are  Richter’s  efforts  to  break 
through  the  sceptical  net,  it  would  be  possible,  page 
after  page,  to  show  how,  misled  by  the  methods  of 
modern  metaphysics,  he  fails  to  meet  the  point  at  issue. 
On  the  whole  the  best  treatise  on  ancient  scepticism  is 
Brochard’s  Les  sceptiques  grecs. 


APPENDIX  E 


The  scepticism  of  Plato,  as  I  have  said,  was  not  for¬ 
mulated  by  him  systematically,  but  its  character  may  be 
learnt  from  passages  in  the  Theaetetus ,  Republic ,  Ti- 
maeus ,  Sophist ,  Parmenides ,  and  Phaedrus.  The  out¬ 
come  of  the  Theaetetus  is  to  show  that  we  have  no  ab¬ 
solute  or  direct  knowledge,  or  at  least  that  we  do  not 
know  what  knowledge  is.  We  must  be  content  with  opin¬ 
ion.  Right  opinion  is  distinguished  from  wrong  opin¬ 
ion  only  by  the  pragmatic  test  of  experience.  Right 
opinion  is  thus  a  kind  of  ex  post  facto  knowledge  of 
events  ;  it  is  not  knowledge  of  causes  or  of  what  nature 
in  itself  is.  In  his  treatment  of  astronomy  in  The  Re¬ 
public  and  of  the  phenomenal  world  generally  in  the 
Timaeus ,  Plato  shows  that  science  is  only  an  approxi¬ 
mate,  never  an  exact  or  final,  statement  of  physical 
law,  and  furnishes  no  basis  for  metaphysical  theory. 

In  the  Sophist  it  is  proved  that  Ideas  do  exist,  at 
least  as  dynameis  (forces  whose  effects  we  perceive), 
and  that  the  realm  of  Ideas  is  a  living  world  of  power 
and  law.  But  again  of  the  ultimate  nature  of  Ideas,  as 
of  matter,  we  have  no  knowledge,  owing  to  the  fact 
that  any  attempt  to  define  them  or  to  explain  their 
relation  to  the  phenomenal  world  involves  the  use  of 
spatial  terms,  whereas  Ideas  are  not  in  space.  This 
difficulty  is  brought  out  in  the  discussion  of  the  Par- 

3^4 


APPENDIX  E 


385 

menides.  Nevertheless,  as  is  demonstrated  in  the  Theae- 
tetus ,  we  have  this  test  of  the  conformity  of  our  moral 
judgments  with  the  operation  of  Ideas,  that  if  a  city, 
for  example,  decrees  certain  laws  as  just,  the  future 
consequences  to  the  life  of  the  city  will  expose  the 
fact  if  the  conception  of  justice  was  false.  Our  condi¬ 
tion  might  be  summed  up  in  the  sentence  that  we  are 
morally  responsible  and  intellectually  impotent.  And 
this  state  of  moral  responsibility  and  intellectual  im¬ 
potence,  it  may  be  observed,  is  the  essence  of  tragedy 
as  worked  out  on  the  Greek  stage.  (On  this  point  I  may 
refer  to  the  profound  study  of  Aeschylus  and  Sopho¬ 
cles  in  P.  H.  Frye’s  Romance  and  Tragedy.)  The  vi¬ 
sion  of  Ideas  and  the  theory  of  reminiscence,  as  de¬ 
scribed  in  The  Republic,  Phaedrus,  and  other  dia¬ 
logues,  are  a  mythological  expression  of  a  philosophy 
which  combines  a  spiritual  affirmation  with  scepticism. 


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Hellenistic  philosophies 

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